I'm not sure what you mean by the term sucker, but you want this undergrowth. you should encourage it, not prune it. More branches=more nodes=more peppers.

Leave it alone.....read a book.

I agree...I'd let the plant sort it out.

Either you'll have a very bushy plant or the lower growth will not amount to much while the plant concentrates on the upper growth.

Thank you for the feedback.

This idea of "Suckers" came from "Tomato pruning". Their explanation are very reasonable.

I think the lower small branches suck energy of the plants as a result the upper growth stopped so I cut off the top stem. The branches are a lot and look a bit unnatural.

Thank you again for your opinions.

Caelian

Don't go messing with it too much, tomato pruning methods don't apply to peppers in the same way. With peppers, these side branches are encouraged.

More specifically, indeterminate tomatoes. Determinate varieties should NOT be pruned.

What's good for a sub-set of tomatoes isn't necessarily good for peppers.

Either way, I don't think you'll hurt the plant.

Thank you again for the feedback.

I have been trying to get more information about "suckers". I cannot find any information for chili suckers but others such as citrus plant in the GW forum.

After a few weeks I think these plants may have changed their growth and it may be helpful to make a right decision at that time.

Caelian

caelian:

Like everybody has mentioned, leave them be. And like tsheets mentioned, suckers really should only apply to INDETERMINATE tomatoes. In fact, there's much controversy when pruning them even on tomatoes. I've pruned them on tomatoes and haven't really noticed any difference in production.

The only time I prune ANYTHING on peppers is maybe towards the end of the season -- I then MAY nip some blossoms... knowing that the cold is coming and any more pods that form probably won't mature anyhow.

Kevin

Kevin, thank you for the feedback.

I sincerely appreciate all of your feedback and efforts to help me.

Caelian

Actually I have topped several of my pepper plants this year that I plan to grow in 6 gallon containers. The reason being to encourage the undergrowth which has exploded since topping these plants. I am growing two of several varieties (bishop's crown, trinidad scorpion butch t, scotch bonnet, and chocolate scorpions) side by side in containers just to carry out this experiment. So far the topped plants are only slightly shorter but have a tremendous amount more growth from the shoots growing out of the lower nodes. If anyone is interested I can post pictures.

bzzzz: topping is one thing. Pinching all the "suckers" imo would defeat a lot of crucial foliage and stemming that a pepper plant needs to produce well.

I can see why it may be done with tomatoes -- thin out the foliage and encourage larger, but less, fruit. I just don't see the advantage of pinching suckers on a PEPPER plant.

Kevin

I am interested to see the plants please upload.

Under normal condition there may not be too much branches but when the plants got stress or certain problems then as a result they may be produced a lot of small branches.

Orozoco:

This plant have grown without proper lighting and got sunburn again. When I saw all these small branches I thought it was the characteristic of this variety. Still I cannot confirm it yet.

Another one:

These plants have grown faster than the rest of my other plants. The color of the leaves were a bit violet and now they change to green.

When they were too young all the branches were not looked normal, now they are getting better. To remove some unwanted/abnormal/no potential to become a healthy branches should be helpful to the plant I think.

Caelian

Here is a link that might be useful: Suckers

This post was edited by chilliwin on Fri, May 17, 13 at 5:02

This plant is Tabasco it got the same problems like Orozoco. These branches looks normal to me.

Tabasco:
{{gwi:1168585}}

Caelian

Caelian, i'd agree with others on not removing those branches, only possibly if you don't want leaves touching the ground. More branches means more leaves to feed the flowers and fruit. I've actually tied down some of my peppers to expose the internodes to light and make them grow more branches. It's much less stressful on the plant than topping, google "low stress training" to see what i'm talking about.

Thank you Teyo, I think you and others are right.

I do not like to start a new thread to ask a question to you about expanded clay. The pine bark fine is very expensive here so I am wondering is it possible to replace pine bark fine by expanded clay or cat litter. I got a pretty good result of modified pine bark base medium. still I would like to use pine bark based medium. They are very good in 5 gallon containers.

I would like to get some advice from you and others regarding this matter.
Caelian

Hmm you basically need a replacement for the organic part of the mix... do you have any ideas about what is organic, chunky and locally available?
you could try just plain cat litter, people grow bonsai in it without problem. you would probably have to experiment a bit with fertilizer but i doubt peppers would be problematic, you could change the formula and have no residual effects anyhow in an inorganic mix like that. growers here use pelleted chicken poop as top dressing to fertilize bonsai, and it works great, i don't see why it wouldn't work with peppers.
just sacrifice one or two plants you don't like and stick them in pure cat litter, that's the fastest way to find out :)
i'd happily do it for you but we don't have DE litter here unfortunately. but i can stick a few in expanded clay and we can compare results later if you want :) it could be a fun experiment

Teyo, thank you again for the reply. A couple of small containers I use expanded clay instead of perlite but I cannot see any differences.

Still I enjoy the potting soil from Germany. I added some perlite and expanded clay. Only a couple of containers I mixed with pine bark fine for 7 and 5 gallon containers the result are so good. Still pine bark fine is one of the essential components of potting soil I think.

Still now I do not know very well about the function of perlite, vermiculite and turface in the potting soil except they are good for soil aeration. I think their function are all same.

I have grown one sunburned Ghost in orchid soil to see the result.

It is unfortunate DE litter is not available there..and it would be very kind of you if you try some with expanded clay :) to see the result.
Caelian

This post was edited by chilliwin on Sat, May 18, 13 at 3:06