How to Prune Pepper Leaves To Increase Your Harvest.
How do I prune pepper leaves to increase my harvest? This is one major question a lot of pepper gardeners keep asking. Even though many of them expect a one-size-fits-all answer, the answer varies and depends on your garden’s needs, challenges, and other growing conditions. In this post, we discussed everything you need to know about pruning pepper leaves to increase your harvest.
Before we start, it is important to state that the way or guidelines of pruning each pepper variety vary. There are a lot of confusing procedures and techniques that must have kept you wondering which one to follow or even implement. Do not worry, in this post, we have one goal which is to make everything about pruning pepper simple, easy, and clear to you.
What is pruning pepper leaves?
To prune pepper leaves is the simple process of removing portions of pepper leaves to boost new growth. Even though it is simple, pruning pepper is not always necessary. This is because it leads to different outcomes depending on the season when it was done.
At what seasons are pepper leaves prune?
The act of pruning pepper leaves is done at three major stages. Here are the major seasons:
- Early-season
- Fall Season
- Harvest
Pruning pepper leaves during these three seasons will likely invigorate growth and help your pepper plants produce large harvests. The idea is that pruning your pepper plants reshape them, give them more light, and trick the pepper plants into producing more fruit than usual.
Can I prune pepper leaves in my location?
Pruning pepper can be done anywhere and in any of the seasons we have mentioned above. However, you must note the following:
- Peppers grown in warm temperatures are likely not going to need pruning.
- Peppers grown in colder temperatures or zones need pruning more than warm ones.
Why should I Prune Pepper Leaves?
There are many reasons why you should prune pepper leaves. Here are some of them:
- Pruning pepper leaves reshapes your plants.
- It forces the plant to focus its energy on growth.
- It helps the pepper plant to fill in with new growth from the lower nodes.
What Should You Should Consider Before You Prune Pepper Leaves?
When it comes to pruning pepper plants, there are some very important things you should consider. Here are some you should take note of:
- Your pepper variety: The variety of the pepper you have grown is one thing to consider before pruning. I know you just asked why. Here it is: Some variety has more leaves and forms more branches. So for this kind of variety, you should prune more leaves and some stem to give the pepper plant good direction to enable them give you great yield.
- Number of leaves on your pepper plant as at the time of pruning: One mistake that a lot of people. Some pepper plant has scanty leaves especially at the early stage, so, pruning the few leaves might highly affect the pepper growth. Also many people make the mistake of pruning pepper plant at their seedling stage which is really bad. As a rule of the thumb, once a pepper plant has 2 to 5 leaves, you should never prune it. Pruning them at this stage will stress out the pepper plant and cause it to catch infections, diseases and even die off.
- The shape of the variety you want to grow: This is another important thing to consider and it mostly determine by the variety of the pepper. Yes, many pepper variety takes different shapes. So it is solely in your hands to determine if their current shape can help them give you great produce or you should prune them to take better shapes that assures you of bountiful harvest.
At What Stage should I Prune Pepper Plants?
The truth is that there are different stages when pruning should be done for pepper plants. So, you should study your plant and choose what stage works for you. However, here are four basic stages in the growing season:
- Topping Stage: This is mostly 4-6 weeks after your pepper plant has sprouted. By this time your pepper plant must have gotten a strong hold and grip on the soil must have grown about 6-8 inches tall and must have more than 6 leaves. Aside from this, pruning at the topping stage helps protect the plant from strong winds and encourages a lower growth habit in your pepper plant. Another benefit of pruning at the topping stage, causes your pepper plant to experience fuller
- Bottom pruning: This is simply cutting off the lower leaves from the plant in order to keep the foliage up and also away from the soil. It is done a few weeks after transplanting your pepper outside. This is because the soil can harbor fungi and pathogens which can affect your pepper plants. Another benefit of bottom pruning is that it keeps the main stem of your pepper away and free of foliage, rain, and wind. It also stops water from splashing soil onto the plant leaves.
- 2-3 weeks before frost: This comes during winter. This is at the point where your pepper plant is about to end its life cycle, and frost is fast approaching. So, you need to cut away any branches that do not have peppers on them but also ensure you leave enough leaves to continue producing food for the pepper plant through photosynthesis. This will in turn encourage the peppers plant to produce more pepper before winter and make to ripen up fast.
- Just before overwintering: Pruning your pepper plant keeps your pepper plants alive over the winter. It involves cutting off most the leaves on your pepper plant and leaving just a few stem. It could be risk but that will see your plant producing much harvest after the winter is gone.
How To Prune Pepper Plants?
While there are many methods of pruning pepper plant, I will focus on topping of your pepper plant only. What is topping? Topping is simply the act of taking a single-stemmed plant and pinch the top part of the stem off. It is done at the early stage of your pepper growth cycle. Most importantly it is done around the time when your pepper plant is 4-6 weeks of age.
Before we look at how to prune your pepper plant using this method, please note that unlike other crops like lettuce, you can’t prune peppers with your fingers. I advise against that.
Instead, get a pair of slicers which you can use to slice through thick stems with less resistance and damage to the plant. You might also consider getting tools like tools like pruners, or any similar product. The essence is to prune your pepper plant without damages.
Now that, that is out of the way, here are the steps to show you where and how to prune pepper plants.
1. Find your pepper plant nodes
The first thing to do during topping is to find the node. Nodes are like a crossroads along a pepper plant’s stem. These cross roads are very important points from which new leaves and stems can sprout from after you have slice through or cut a leave. So, there are nodes and there are internodes too. Internodes is the long stems between nodes are simply called “internodes.” This means that once you top your plant, it has the capability to develop more and more nodes, shooting off more leaves, flowers and stems along the way. So, identify the nodes on your pepper plant will help you cut at an exact point that would not cause damage to your plant.
2. Cutting point
Now that you have determine the point to cut from, it is time to top. So, for the topping, you’ll just need to make a single slice or cut. Ideally, Young peppers plants are to be prune above the 3rd or 4th node, starting from the bottom part of the plant. One good thing that this does is that it trigger new growth from lower on the plant.
3. Cut with Pruner or a scissors
At this stage, It is time to cut. So, with your pruner or scissors, hold the pepper plant and cut from the point you have earlier detected. It only needs one slice or cut as long as your tool or scissors is sharp. Please note: Do not use your fingers to cut, break or pinch the stems especially if you don’t want your pepper plant to get damaged, and if you would love it to recover faster and begin forming new growth sooner.
2 Stages when you should Prune pepper leaves
There are 3 stages at which you can prune your pepper plant.
- At Transplanting
- During Harvest
1. Prune When Transplanting Your Pepper:
This is perfect for you if you raised your pepper in a nursery before planting. This will help your pepper plant get useed to their new environment in your garden faster.
2. Prune After Harvesting Your Pepper:
Harvesting stage. This is another perfect time to prune your pepper plant. Beside growing big and strong, pruning pepper will always help them produce much better harvest.
Benefit of pruning your pepper:
There are a lot of benefits of pruning pepper plants. Here are some of the which you should know:
- Pruning pepper plants gives them direction
- It channels the pepper plant energy to the right direction which ensure greater harvest.
- It helps the plant grow multiple stems.
- It creates multiple branches for your pepper plant.
- It helps your pepper bear more fruits
- Finally, it assures you of better harvest.
- Pruning speeds up the ripening of pepper fruits.
Can pruning peppers cause damages to my pepper?
The simple is yes. Most times pruning causes damages to your pepper plants. Most times (almost every time) prune plants spend their time and energy recovering from such pruning and during this stage they can get infected by disease which might cause them to start withering. It causes setbacks for the plants and can still make them experience stunted growth. This is why I suggest you start with just 10 pepper plant especially if you have not mastered the art of pruning, then compare the outcome with those that were not prune.
Our Final Thought:
Beside your pepper growing big and strong, pruning pepper will always help them produce better harvest. And it is one thing you should consider doing after factoring in most of the things I have shared with you in this article.
Start by pruning a few pepper plants let’s say just 10 plants. Check out the result and compare the outcome with those that are not pruned. This will help you make better decisions on the next set of peppers you will grow. And if you love to get more guidance, join our community of gardens and farmers from all over the world here: Brilliant Tech Farmers Hub. Check out more articles below and tell a friend about us.
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