Habanero Help - Small Fruit

Hi Guys,

It's that time of year again when this hapless chilli grower is needing assistance.

I managed to over-winter my orange Habanero plants (x3) successfully with only a mild prune needed in January. The plants are budding, flowering and producing fruit now and other than my inability to keep up with pollenating every flower they seem healty enough. I am getting plenty of flower dropping but I am not overly concerned as they are producing so many flowers it is unreal.

What I am a little concerned about is the fruit. They are ripening very quickly and not getting anywhere near the size they should be. Many are ripening when not much bigger than a pea with the largest one only getting to raspberry size at best.

I am keeping them watered very few days if needed and using a chilli focus feed every other water but I am clearly doing something wrong?

The plants are kept in my conservatory without any additional heating but with the typical British weather the temperatures are all over the place.

Can anyone advise on what I could do to yeild larger fruit?

Thanks, Stevie

Reply to
Stevie
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Pollinate less of them, perhaps. Pick off excess flowers. I'm no chilli grower, but as a general rule, for the same plant, if there are fewer fruit, the fruit are larger (within the range of size that plant produces.) I see no particular reason that would not be true of Chillis as anything else.

Temperature-wise, I think they want to stay above 10C/50F at night or they are likely to sulk.

Depending on how effective your pollination is, limited/partial pollination can also have a negative effect on fruit size/shape.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

It's too cold, they think they are about to die so they make fruit and ripen ASAP. You are going to much trouble for little result, it would be simpler to grow them as annuals. I suppose it depends on whether you grow things for the challenge or the product.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

You may want to fertilize a little more often than normal for the next 6 weeks. With warmth, water, and nitrogen, they should settle back into vegetative growth instead of flowering.

Reply to
Billy

Stevie wrote: ...

likely needs more heat and light. trim off the flowers as they appear. see if only leaving a few makes them bigger. if not, then wait until there is more light and heat.

might be too much nitrogen.

patience until it gets warmer and has more sunshine.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Nitrogen (too much will kill the plant), with sufficient water, warmth, and 8-12 hr. of sunshine would suppress flowering. The plants respond to shorter days by setting flowers.

Reply to
Billy

Brilliant advice guys, I will cut back on the feed a little and trim off some flowers so I can concentrate on more thorough pollenation.

I will wait for the warmer weather (ha ha) and see what happens.

Cheers again!

Stevie

Reply to
Stevie

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