Do Chilli plants require sleep?

[pollux]

Sorry to be an eco-freak but all this need for lighting, expensive lighting simply isn't necessary.

I start my chilli plants off in January and have done so each year since 1999.

They go in used water/lemonade or any clear 2L plastic bottles, which are cut 90% of the way around and roughly half way down. Four holes are stabbed in the bottle grooves with a sharp knife.

I use the cheapest compost (usually grow bag variety) that I can find and fill to approx. 1/3rd of the whole bottle deep, then I water well and let drain and let the soil come up to room temperature.

Then the seeds go in, 5 at a time spread out carefully. Then I sprinkle a little dry compost over the top of them (and I mean a little, say 1/8th inch).

The still-attached top of the plastic bottle is then replaced so as to make the bottle whole again and clear sticky tape closes it up. The lid is left on until the first shoots appear which normally takes a couple of weeks; then I open and close it to regulate the water dropets which form on the inside of the bottle. This is all done in my spare room and any other available space.

When the little plants are about two inches tall I re-pot them into more plastic bottle containers, this time filled up to half way. You have to be careful doing this as the little plants are quite fragile at this size and you have to very carefully tease the root from the soil.

I regulate my little green house bottle by removing the lid as required and watering is done from below. When the plant is well established and there is no fear of frost the chillis can go outside and the lids can come off. Keep the soil moist and watering can now be done directly into the plastic pot.

Cropping can start from mid June and encourage a second growth by cutting back quite hard, but leave a few of the lower stems leafy stems. The next crop will be with you by August.

And I don't get this strange buying of seeds at several quids per time. All my seeds are harvested from fresh chillis which have gone into food. Ok - you may not always be able to get a particular variety on a specific day, but they do keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Germination rate from really fresh (straight from the pod) seed is about 80%.

Use tomato plant food (cheapest one you can get, made up in regular strength) and use it in the watering can every day. Dont let the soil get dry ever, once the warm weather comes and grown in the manner described above, you can't over water or over feed them but the plants will wither and not recover if you allow them to dry out. DO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE HOLES FOR DRAINAGE IN THE BOTTOM OF YOUR BOTTLES.

The only real problem I've had with chillis is ants and slugs, which seem to love them even more than humans do. I'm not very organic when it comes to pests and I admit to using slug pellets and ant powder.

I grow chives and marigolds all over the place in my little garden which seems to keep aphids off.

Please don't waste and more fossil-fuel energy. It simply can't be justified.

[crichmond]

Needless to say I will carry on using mine especially over my hydroponic system, healthier plants and larger crops.

[starloc]

Lights arent exactly necessary for a uk plants growth at normal times of year , but to grow any plant at any time of year they are necessary ( unless you move to were the plant comes from ) and you do get better growthand production from a plant with the lamps as you can not usualy have too much light, more light usualy means better growth

This winter i am lighting all the outside area and greenhouse with sodium/MH lamps , running from a generator, the generator will be running on alcohol ( methanol ), a very enviromently friendly fuel it will also power most of the house.

[smallblueplanet]

Sorry to be an eco-freak but all this need for lighting, expensive lighting simply isn't necessary....

Please don't waste and more fossil-fuel energy. It simply can't be justified.

But no doubt your cheapest compost has peat in it, and your slug pellets and ant powder aren't very eco?

I bought a 20w eco 'daylight bulb' and a flexible desk lamp and used that to provide extra light over my chilli seedlings. The seedlings went in mid-Feb on a west facing window in a heated prop - I reckon 45-ishW (prop & light) per hour for 14 hours a day. Well worth it as my chillies look big and healthy and lots have flower buds. Whats that, about 2/3rds of an electric unit per day?

[tamsin]

I started a couple under LED's, running them 17hrs per day for 3/4 months over winter costs a couple of quid and I've been picking peppers since Feb.

I imagine that is cheaper and more eco friendly than eating shop brought peppers that have been grown the same way and been travelling around the world too

[lynda66]

the secret of artificial lighting is to have the light on 18 hours a day whilst growing, then when they start to flower (or get big enough to flower) reduce the daylight length to 12 hours, so they think it's autumn and begin to set flowers and fruit

[rana]

Tamsin - is that just ordinary white LEDs or are there special grow LEDs ?

nb. apologies for all the questions but this is quite fascinating

[00264167]

how many chillis would you normally get from one plant?

ive thought about growing them before but never bothered as its only a few pence for a couple of handfuls at the indian store.

[starloc]

It depends on the plant, ones like the numex twighlight i bought as a 2 foot high plant last year had about 100 or more on it, it was covered, its got about 50 on it now, less than last year as the spidermites got it in january, one called big jim i have about a foot tall has about 10, a dark leaved one i bought on ebay as a seedling last year for 99p, had about 50 through the year, now it has about 20 ive been using them and its flowering all over there will be loads, `peter penis pepper....` yet to have any chillies!, cayenne pepper, the large plant about 2 years old has about 30 on it, the seedlings grown last july, flowered and had about 10 each peppers in december but they were small plants, they are now flowering again about 2 foot high, but just between 5 or 10 per plant yet but again loads of flowers on them
If kept in the house, even without growlights on a windowledge they tend to keep flowering and fruiting all year as long as they dont get cold

[00264167]

thanks starloc, im kicking myself now for not doing a few seeds earlier on, i think its too late now even if i grew them inside on a windowsill.

i looked up the varieties you mentioned, the amount of varieties avilable is hugh, im not sure i can chose between them just from their descriptions or be able to tell if one taste smokey or sweet as they say, chillis ive had from shops just taste hot to me.
i think next year i'll try out superchilli for its high yields and hungarian hot wax as i love them in kebab shops.

[mnmc2004]

A 24 hour photosynthesis would hinder growth, 18 hour cycle mimics nature more in that its the lengh of longest day of the year, the Summer solstice, which is on or near 21 June

18/6 and when flowering switch to 12/12 anything else and you will hinder growth and production and of course waste electric costs! Humans are like plants in that we both require day and night cycles, after all would you be happy trying to sleep with the sun shining on your 24 hours/7 days a week ?

Envirolights are cheap to run and produce alot less heat, plants need to be close to the lights....but do not have much lumens and not much of the PAR spectrum needed for plant growth and you need to use Blue enviro for the veg stage and red Enviro for Flowering stage as they diff in the PAR spectrum just as the sun does going into autumn.

Metal halide/Sodium have more lumens but are 4-5 times more PAR spectrum than Enviro's, but again Metal Halide has shown to be better in the vegetative and Sodium in the flowering stage, that said a sodium will give better overall results !

Theres a saying "Lumens for Humans, PAR for Plants" which basically means, just becasue its bright light source, it does'nt mean its good for plant growth !!!!

LED lighting is a waste purchasing to start with as they do not have enough PAR spectrum, far less than Enviro's !

[rana]

18 hour cycle mimics nature

I might remind you that chillis are tropical/sub tropical plants where the pattern of light/dark is close to 12/12. Therefore exposing them to 18 hrs of light for maximum growth/photosynthesis has nothing to do with our longest days being around 18 hours. On that argument you could suggest that an eskimo living in the arctic circle should expose plants to 24 hour light.

[Twang20]

All Capsicum are day neutral, so the ratio of sunlight/darkness wont effect flowering and fruiting. I like to give my seedlings 18/6 under blue CFL and go down to 16/8 as they get bigger but just to save a couple of quid.

[mnmc2004]

I said mimics more, not exactly....

The day and night cycle of tropical plants being around 12/12 is correct but using artificial light, the cycle can be manipulated to maximise growth and production.

Which is what producers who use artificial lighting do and they follow a pattern of the longest day of the year being around 18 hours, which means that a different light cycle produces better results than the light cycle from where they originated from. :shock:

Switching to 12/12 is more a cost issue so i'm told...

Yes, that does vary from plant species and so I would not suggest that to your Eskimo friend at all....nor would he do so either as Gardeners World Pipa Greenwood once reported last year:-

“What made me smile during our trip were the observations I made of the changes in plants’ growth the further north we travelled. A classic example was a laburnum we spotted that was only just coming into bloom.
It wasn’t just laburnums. The hawthorn trees became less easy to recognise; their annual rate of growth was obviously so very slow that the leafy branches looked rather like woolly pipe cleaners. But the bravest plant of all was the common rowan. The size of these wonderful trees decreased as we travelled north”

There is a large Hydroponic based in Manchester who grow an extensive array of chilli varieties under artificial lighting, manipulating the light cycle of 18/6, if you was to see, with amazing results.