Pruning the tops goes along with pruning the roots. You prune roots to let them fit into smaller pots. You prune the tops because the roots that are left can't support all the foliage.

Tepin pruned

Tepin 10 weeks later

That's the same plant? That's amazing.

Yes, that is amazing considering the plant is indoors. Most of the time they don't grow nearly that prolifically unless they are somehow getting good light for a long time each day.
To go from a stump to having ripe pods in 10 weeks even outside in prime weather would be great. I am not familiar with Tepins. Maybe they are just real vigorous growers.
Bruce

BTW, Willard isn't suggesting that you prune that severely. He is showing you what is possible.

the other night we had freeze here in mid michigan and I quickly dug up two of my better bhuts put them in five gallon buckets with very light fertilizer. Should I prune these plants back? They are about forty inches tall and still holding about 60 to 80 peppers each.Also can someone tell me if I can hang ripen my other 40 or so plants full of peppers.I have harvested maybe 1000 peppers and will lose 2000 or so if I cant figure out how to ripen the rest of the way properly.

It's just amazing how much they tolerate! Trimming back and using smaller pots will really help me out. I keep my plants in my large heated garage but it has it's share of cars and junk taking up space. I have a couple of metal halide lights I use with my seedlings and florescent strips also. I usually keep the garage about 55 deg as I have some koi out there and my well pressure tank and such too. I have some ghosts and sports left from last year. I'd like to overwinter my nagas, 7 pots, Butch T's and doing it like this I could keep my sweet bells that produced good this year. Any tricks to keep them from bushing out and over running my space? Hours of light? Temps? Eventually once they're in I'll shoot some pics to share.

It is tough to overwinter peppers and have them produce like they do outside in the summer. You need to duplicate the outside conditions for this to happen which means temps in the 80's and lots of light. Most people overwinter peppers with the goal to simply keep them alive until the next spring when they can put them outside again. To do this, you should cut them back severely ( not quite like willard3) and uproot them and cut the rootball back to about the size of a baseball or slightly bigger. Then repot in good well draining soil in a smaller container, ad some fertilizer and water. They will survive with limited light and lower temps this way and once they get back into prime conditions next spring, they will begin to flourish once again. There are many good threads on overwintering, just search the forum and you will likely find answers to every question you many have.
Bruce

The amount of growth will depend on the amount of light.

You can just trim them up every now and then to keep them compact.

Thanks all! I will attack them this weekend...maybe. Time is definitely not on my side most weeks. This will sure beat getting a hernia lugging 5 gal buckets around. Even with a 2 wheeler it's a chore.

This tepin was grown inside in temp controlled environment with plenty of light in hydro.

I pruned it this far as an experiment. It's really hard to kill a chile.

Can most pepper plants be pruned to that level and come back. I knew you could prunde the leaves and branches but the roots too?

Yeah, you can prune the roots. Its highly recommended you do so whenever you overwinter as it will help control the plant's growth and keep it from exploding on you during the winter.

Although I think Willard up there went a little overboard on his, but long as it didn't die more power to him.

Wow, this is great information, I can re-pot mine in much smaller pots and save space in my house.

"I pruned it this far as an experiment. It's really hard to kill a chile."

The photo impressed me willard. That really was some drastic pruning! Do you think an Aji Limon could be done the same way?

My goal is to just 'keep it alive' through the winter.

What's the minimum temp I could store them at? Just above freezing? How much light do the chiles actually need to 'just survive'?

I don't think any self-respecting chile grower would do the experiments required to find out the answers to those questions.

Now thats not true. We all have peppers that we grow that for whatever reason we decide aren't worth the effort of overwintering that we just let die (either by not bringing them in, or by pulling them up and tossing them on the compost pile).

If you're going to kill them/let them die anyway, might as well use them to gain valuable knowledge for helping the rest of them.

You're a hard man. You might qualify to be a scientist.

Or a DEA agent.

Burning up poor defenseless plants ... ):