John,
That is a neat looking plant. What kind of lighting are you using to winter it over? Very nice!

I use one Metal Hallide and one sodium grow light. But I still use 40w fluro shop lights for seedlings.

I did something similiar with a Thai Sun Pepper (pepper joe seedstock) over the course of 4 years or so.

shelbyguy, how is the plant doing? Are you still training it?

I dwarf plants and have very small older plants. Bonsai must be as much fun as dwarfing.

Check out this dwarf....

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1146285}}

Willard3,
How do you go about dwarfing a plant?

If you clone a chile, the clone is smaller than the parent. If you clone the clone, plant is smaller still.

The picture is of a 3rd generation clone.

Interesting. It looks like the plant is smaller but the pods appear to be full size.

I presume that by cloning you mean starting a plant from cuttings, right? Does the smaller size hold true for all plants, or are peppers unique that way? I know that planting cuttings is a common way to start many kinds of plants, but I thought they grew to a normal size.

Willard3, cool plant and cool dwarf. The thing about bonsai is the trunk and roots which add old age character to what would be a full size plant. By trimming and training the roots, branches and leaves it dwarfs it. I am trying to acheive a small tree with this plant.

snip
Does the smaller size hold true for all plants, or are peppers unique that way? I know that planting cuttings is a common way to start many kinds of plants, but I thought they grew to a normal size.
snip

I don't know if chiles are unique in dwarfing, but there was a study done in Mexico that showed chiles dwarfed if they were cloned (reproduced from cuttings).

I can see some advantages to dwarf plants. Especially when you want to overwinter some but don't have much room!

That's the reason I dwarf in the first place, to conserve space. I have a lighted, climate-controlled greenhouse that is 48" x 48" and I have spaces to grow 12 chiles.

Many, many chiles I like to grow are 3-5' tall and 2-3' in diameter if left to grow naturally.

I dwarf a plant down to the size I want and then grow it for a long time. Dwarfs seem to fly in the face of the rule that older plants have reduced fruit with age; old clones increased fruit production for 9 years running in a couple of cases. Fruit production has never decreased with age with my clones.

Cloning chiles does NOT create dwarfs.

ucovinero, please substantiate your claim. For the sake of debate, we can all benefit from knowing the facts. Sounds like you and I share the same concept as to what dictates TRUE dwarfism.

Morphological characters are brought about by gene seperation or isolation, not by propagation from cuttings.
Personally, I believe dwarfism is characterized by how many genetic changes are responsible for the evolution of new characters. New species can be derived from segregating progenies produced from hybrids within and between plant species.
For example, so called "dwarf" fruit trees and Japanese maples are generally trees grown from grafted stock. Grafting is simply a quicker method to achieve a more compact form which would otherwise take many years to bring about morphological divergence.
It has been my personal experience with fruit trees that if not properly maintained, they can resort to becoming standard size trees.

Now I do have some true hybridized dwarf daffodils coming up in my yard at the moment. :)

I'm inclined to go with Webster on what a dwarf is as follows (look at second definition, which is how I am using it):

Main Entry: 1dwarf
Pronunciation: 'dworf
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural dwarfs /'dworfs/; also dwarves /'dworvz/
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English dwerg, dwerf, from Old English dweorg, dweorh; akin to Old High German twerg dwarf
1 a : a person of unusually small stature; especially : one whose bodily proportions are abnormal b : an insignificant person
2 : an animal or plant much below normal size