I don't have pictures right now but I 'topped' a few of my pepper plants that were sickly leggy, including a Thai pepper plant. Within days I noticed so much branching along the main stem and now many of those branches have really grown out thickly. Topping does work! I bought some pepper plants at give away prices at the farmers market. These are just sticks with a few leaves at the top. I would like to top them to get a better plant but then I would have just a stick. I don't know if that would live! Thanks for sharing.

K.

sugi....I am emboldened! I went out and decapitated two pepper plants. They were two of several I have of the same variety and they were the runts so not much is lost. Maybe 4 or 8 baby buds at the top. I am kind of confident they will come back with more buds than before...but great expt either way.

I have not yet topped the truly stick-y farmers markets plants. I just planted them. I will give them a few days to settle in and then go cut off the tops.....

K.

I ran an experiment on a Hot Hungarian Wax this year. I have 9 planted and on one, I topped it. IT is now my smallest plant and only one of two that has yet to set a pod. The topping was about a month or so ago. Not impressed.

You go, Kat. I like experimenting in nothing to lose situations.

Esox, how big was it when you topped it?

I think that makes a difference. I have a friend who basically tops at the third set of leaves. I can't do that. No guts and it doesn't make sense, lol.

My pepper plants being Thai Hots, most likely, (these are those mystery peppers I've written about at length, if you recall), they are small to begin with. Technically, if a bigger plant had this many leaves, it's a pretty big pepper plant. Given that I topped mine about 2 weeks ago, I technically topped it when it was significantly "large," respectively. Furthermore, I know some take several sets off the top; I only topped off the top set of leaves.

Just rambling, I case you spot something you did differently. :)

Probably 6" tall

esox07 and Sugi...I actually wanted to bring this up but forgot to write it. By how much might topping set your plant back?

For me the branches came in quite quickly and impressively. But I don't see new buds. My plants are very, very, young so they would respond vigorously with vegetative growth and maybe even bud set.

I think how much of the top you cut off will determine how soon they come back. And the type of pepper probably too. I did a Padron pepper, a Peri Peri pepper and an Orange Thai pepper. I cut the very top 2-4 leaves. At the time none of those plants had any buds. And these conditions seem to work.

Today I topped two long cayenne pepper plants. These though had buds where I topped them. How fast they come back and set buds will be informative.

Lets see what happens in the next few days.

From where I am I can't understand what happened to your plants esox07. I am sorry they are not responding favorably.

K.

I only topped about one inch off the top on mine. I know some people top peppers and some are very religious about it. I am more in the camp of, the pepper usually knows best. I have found that the less I mess with my peppers, the better off I am. I pretty much stick to the basics.

Well, if I experience that it sets me back, I don't think I'd do it.

The one I topped had a bud or two clustered at the top, which I chopped off. Nowhere else did it have any buds though now, it does.

That said, the one difference I reckon would be true is that leaf count matters. My Serrano seeds were planted in mid-May along with this Thai, and while it is significantly taller, it has maybe 15 leaves. If I top that, I expect it to slow, so most likely I will top one of the Serranos after it is much, much bigger, probably after a harvest, even.

This Thai, while petite, has a lot of leaves. For that reason, I'd guess it's more capable of feeding itself to grow even if I top off 6-8 at the top vs. the Serrano, if I take off 4-5 at the top, it's back to juvenile stage lol.

I dunno, that has always been my way of thinking but who knows? I sure don't.

But I will say this. Last year, when I topped this same Thai pepper, it was significantly SHORTER than the non topped siblings it had. I had about 2x the peppers as my current example is wanting to do, but it never did meet the height of the two other Thais I had, all from the same pepper.

I am looking at my topped plant experiments. I have to say again topping works. How soon the plants bounce back seems to depend on how much was clipped with the respect to the size and age of the plant and how vigorously the plant was/is growing. All that seems obvious when you think about it and it becomes more obvious as you see the plant respond after topping. All the plants I topped have put on at least 4 or 5 main side shoots and each of these are a leafy 3-5 inches. Given how young these plants are, that's a lot of growth. And now, one by one I see buds coming on all the shoots, not just header area.

Yes, all the plants are 'shorter' than they would have been had I not topped. But they it grew all around.

K.

Hi Sugi, my sticks took a while to settle in. Interestingly there are leaves coming out of the nodes of the denuded stalks and nothing is happening at the top. The few leaves at the top look so damaged that probably the plants believe that they have been tipped? Is that even possible? So I actually haven't tipped them yet. Giving them some time to have a few leaves to work with. Maybe I still will.

esox07: My topped plants are doing great. Lots of buds, lots of leaves and bushy shape. When right next to it the sisters are healthy but tall and lanky with fewer buds. They are set back, in my garden by about 12-16 days as far as visible buds go, relative to the other plants of its kind that did not get topped. But I think I see what you see too. One of the topped plants was quite 'young' and it really is struggling to get moving again and is the smallest plant I have now. I think it takes a little bit of experience to make a decision to top, when and how. As you say, nature knows best, specially when a plant is doing well.

K.

Well, here's an update to the original two pepper plants.

The topped one is on the left and is significantly ahead of the untopped one:

Interestingly, it's taller, too, which is different from my past experience but that was in San Francisco where the sun is not really sun, and sun in 68* summers just doesn't cut it.

i haven't counted the buds but visibly, it appears to have a handful more than the untopped one at least at this moment.

This particular pepper is mightily prolific anyway, so I doubt will be able to tell come a little later. But at least as a starting point, topping appears to have pushed more growth and buds.

They remain in the same spot next to each other and are kept on the same water and feeding schedule.

Oh and the little sister in gritty mix update:

She chugs along nicely. So cute. LOL

On a couple of different occasions, I came home to find her puddled over completely sad. But a good watering brings her right back. This is not topped and is on Foliage Pro and Ffish emulsion, depending on my mood and when she slumped over. Haha.

No idea what she plans on doing with the blooms considering she's of no size to carry them.

Hi Sugi....very interesting and nice looking plants. I would like to see if in the end, this variety of pepper being so prolific, if the topping did or did not make any difference.

Just a thought: I have 6 plants of large red cayenne peppers (Burpee). So same batch of seeds, from same vendor, all growing in the same row, next to each other. However each plant has reached a different mature height and as of now is setting different numbers of flowers and fruit. I had topped two of these plants and one has become a whopping success with branches and blooms and the other did not even grow 1/2 inch since topping on the same day or barely put on any additional shoots or buds. So the effect of topping on an individual plant, in terms of laterals, buds, or height might not be generalizable. Its individual genetics can have quirks. But since I am topping several plants and several varieties, and from what I see, I still agree with you that topping does produce a more bushy plant with seemingly more vigor.

Lets see what continues to unfold with our experiments.

By the way I finally did top my sticks. They are not going to go anywhere, they really were stunted by being neglected and root bound way too long and maybe topping will do something?

K.

Kat, this being prolific, I think, makes it harder. I mean....I just don't see myself counting hundreds of peppers and then starting over 5 times because I forgot where I started LOL.

Perhaps I should top my serranos. They both have 1-2 small but growing peppers on it And quite a few flowers' and if I chop one down, that would be easier to track since they are bigger. :)

Glad you cut the sticks but wish you had left one just to see. I am really curious to see if a stick, green but without leaves, will bust out new growth. I'd bet yes. I mean, it may never be perfect or full size after being stunted so seriously but it would be nice to know that a totally defoliated plant can come back.

Do you have photos?

i have a Purple Flash pepper I planted in April that I totally forgot about behind all of the pots during my move in May and not found until July LOL. Unbelievably enough, the thing was still "alive" as in...well, not completely dead...but I repotted it into new soil, totally pruned it down to near nothing and watered to the high heavens. It came back -- still small -- but revving to go now that it's back in full sun. I'll have to get a photo tomorrow. Ain't much to look at right now but I think in a month or two, she'll be back to her vibrantly beautiful but totally-not-worth-eating self. :)

personally, unless you're growing indoors or in containers where shorter bushier plants work better, then i see no reason to chop off the tops of plants. sure they will grow wider, after all, the growth has to go somewhere (eventually).. but does that mean more fruit? no.. it just means the fruit will be lower on the plant.

i'd suggest doing an experiment with multiple plants (ie several chopped and several unchopped) because some plants just grow faster than others, even if they came from the same batch of seeds.. i've planted many kale seeds for example, yet several of them grew 2-3 times faster than some of the other seedlings that were planted at the same exact time.

Entirely possible, Stevie. As mentioned, in the past when I have topped plants, it's been shorter forever. But strangely, not in this particular case where the topped one has grown taller.

Each case probably does vary and as has been mentioned, it could depend on the plant, the growth phase and many, many other variables. Just thought it'd be fun to try on a plant that I topped because I had to since i had another one that didn't require that I top it.

The only other peppers here that I have more than one of are Tabascos (3) and Datil peppers (2), both of which are so slow for me this year I could have produced a child in that time. LOL Topping is not an option, bigger, better or not. I have my Serranos, of which I have three but one is in the ground. I just checked and each has multiple peppers and have long since Y-ed, so I am a bit hesitant to top one of the two in containers. Everything else, I only have one of so short of having to top one, I don't see it happening. There is never a year where I plant that many of one variety--I planted 1-3 of each seed this year (and very late, at that, toward the end of April and beginning of June) and the only reason I have douple, triple of some is just because all came up and I couldn't snip them.

i have a Tabasco (heirloom) plant as well. seems to be a slow grower for sure, but it also seems to be a much smaller plant compared to other chili pepper plants. at least the one im growing.. me thinks slow growers = smaller compact plant = no point in topping (might even hurt doing so)..

it's about as tall as it is wide (about 24 inches) i didn't top it. TONS of flowers top to bottom, and a few 1 inch size pods already. i think this is one plant that would likely not work at all if i had topped it. i'll try to get some pics of it this evening.. it's a beauty..

here is the Tabasco which i didn't top. can't even see the container from the top view.. looks like it "topped" itself ;-)

has to be one of the coolest chili plants to grow, in that the pods point straight up and looks spectacular once the different colors appear.

Aww, that's lovely, Stevie!

But yours is about 200x bigger than mine LOL.

These peppers' natural growth tendencies are fascinating. I have a Takanotsume here that I didn't top--which looks similar to Tabasco peppers in many ways and its natural growth pattern is wide and beautiful unlike others, like serranos--tall and sparse. The sheer ornamental value is high never mind the tasty peppers!

That's a 10 gallon pot! I had it in a 3 gallon and just a couple of days ago repotted it into this container because it was just too big and wide-- which was a nervewracking ordeal as I have never repotted a pepper that had grown this big already in the past. Glad I did too, because the roots had already reached the bottom of the pot (though not circling yet) and I still have months left before I am or it is done. I only minimally loosened some of the roots on the surface of the ball of soil so she didn't blink an eye.

But yea...I like these peppers that spread wide like this. But it does make me wonder what would happen if I "topped" each branch. Wish I had one more just to tinker with!

Grace

Wish I could tell you more about my topping experiment, but I can only add very little now. All my pepper plants have been shredded so they are no longer proper experimental subjects. However it will be interesting to see how they branch and regroup now.

Remember my sticks Sugi? Little shoots were coming out from nodes along the stem in the lower portion. And there were sickly few leaves at the top. I lopped off a lot of the top. A few days later the little shoots really took off. On all the sticks. I have no doubt if you have a sick plant of that nature topping will help. And the shoots have buds on them now. But the animal that came actually broke off most of these little shoots one by one. Why?There were no peppers on the plants.

K.

Not sure this is THAT relevant to your discussion, but I had a rat eating all my smaller peppers a few months ago (killed that little bugger before he got them all).

Some of the peppers (mostly the Thai hots and Cayenne) were reduced to just the main stem. I left them in place and some came back with a vengeance (easily twice the size and bushyness then ones that were not eaten) while others recovered but remained stunted.

I am not sure why some did really well and others did not, but that little unplanned experiment sort of let me know that sometimes topping works, sometimes it does not.

Kat, I totally did not make the connect between you and the mass destruction post. Yikes, I am so sorry. Any sticks to salvage at all? Wretched animals....

Sioux, agreed. The very pepper I am doing this was incredible in its production (I'm still planting from that first set of dried seeds and cooking with them; they're frozen) but growth wise, shorter. I don't know that I would say stunted because production was good, but it wasn't the look I was hoping for in any case.

Probably not really different from some people being more resilient or aggressive than others. :-)

My two continue to show a significant difference:

I have some cross-pollination happening because they are all close to one another. Makes for fun eating, I guess.

Kinda off topic, but how does your Takanotsume taste? Does it taste much different than your Thai peppers? I keep seeing this thread and it is making me consider planting some Japanese chiles.

Marianne, you compelled me to go and taste one. LOL Thanks, my mouth is on fire. But keep in mind you've asked about flavor to someone who critiques food and literally wrote a book about food.

You might want to sit down. LOL

The heat is manageable--for me. My ideal snack is Serrano peppers dipped into Korean pepper padre, so bearing that in mind -- this is slightly hotter than your average Serrano. That said, I've tried some Serrano that will make a grown man cry, so they vary -- but going by the average Serrano heat, this gives you a stronger shot on the tongue and a longer lasting heat.

While I am sure the one I picked off, which was an older one hanging from where each branch Ys, it still wasn't quite ready, I'd say. Still very very green.

Most enticing is the fruity spray of bright but spicy flavor from the skin that keeps giving as you chew. It beats the fruitiness one can expect from some Habanero peppers, especially because it lacks the bitter, smoky punch that some Habs can have (though when used correctly, the smokiness is good, too). This is just citrusy and fruity....which just happens to burn your tongue and the roof of your mouth, haha. That flavor makes it a better pepper for salsas and other fresh dishes that need or benefit from heat garnishes or marinades (like fish...or vegetables); I'd have to be careful when cooking with this so that it doesn't impart fruity heat to savory dishes. It's vibrant!

What does not happen is the burn in the back of the mouth. The heat is really concentrated on the tongue and the burn stays there, too. But--this could be because I quickly swallowed it after I realized it is quite spicy LOL. I can totally feel it in my stomach right now, though!

That's good because while the skin is juicy, the inside is quite seedy for how thin and narrow it is. I'd say there's about 18 seeds in there.

If later on when I actually start harvesting these, the flavor changes, ill let you know. But for now, between that sample and the really, REALLY gorgeous plant, I am impressed with this variety. It is, hands down, the fastest and most prolific out of any that I have grown. I think this one will be quite large by the end of the season. Perhaps I'll try overwintering it. :)

That said, the weather has been hot until this past weekend and this particular pepper was in a 3 gallon before, which I moved up to a 10 gallon just a couple of weeks ago. So during much of its ripening time, it really used up all of the water in the pot quickly (hence my repotting it again so late) and was dry by day's end. That may have contributed to the heat.

The seed itself was planted end of April or maybe the beginning of May--really late.

Hope that helps! :)

Grace

FYI, here's a pic of an un-topped Thai Hot. They start bushing out at the bottom later in the season as they reach mature height.

Excellent! I'll look into getting some after I finish my raised beds. It sounds like it would be good in various Vietnamese soups as part of the garnish.

That's perfect, Marianne!

If you want seeds, I am happy to send you a whole pepper. You can dry it and freeze it until you're ready to plant. ;-)

Thanks for the offer! I'll consider it. I work long hours for the foreseeable future so I've taken to my lazy habit of ordering seedlings from CCN that I really want so I know I'll wind up with a plant and not just a bunch of spots where I thought I put seeds. Seeing yours has me putting this one on my "must order" list for the spring!

Hail topped my peppers for me this year at the very beginning of June, reducing them to 4 inch twigs. I've never topped before, and only learned of it through those of you in this forum. After seeing how huge, branched and lush my plants are, I'll probably top them every year from here on out.

I mostly grow sweet Italian peppers, though I have a few peppers of moderate heat - aji Amarillo, targu mures, thai and a habanero. All responded the same to the hail damage, with explosive growth - and the pepper production has been stellar compared to previous years.

My two experimental peppers continue to drastically differ.

i suppose I should have staked them but...I didn't. They are now quire ugly and unruly, and the topped one even more so. Topped is on the left.

I also topped a Tabasco and it is having the same affect. I am really going to top one of each variety next year to see what happens. :-)

I wish I could fill in you on the topping results of my pepper plants. But they have been so damaged by animals and now by something else......But I really did see very good results from topping and will use it as needed.

K.

I didn't know about pepper topping until I read the start of this thread this summer and so have been paying special attention to the growth habits of my different potted pepper varieties, all grown untopped. It seems the different types have different growth habits.

My chinense all readily grew a strong tree like form and only one out of the group required staking even in our strong winds. Fruit production was pretty darn good I would say, but not amazing. It seemed to me the plants did very well all on their own.

The asian finger style peppers all seemed to more readily form a bush but they were kind of lanky with limited fruit production relative to their size so I do think this type would have benefitted from topping. In my experience fruit set lower on the plant usually does coincide with higher fruit production overall. Especially since this group is supposed to be so prolific.