How to prevent flower drop in 90 + degree weather?

[Datil Patch]

How is the calcium or dolomite lime in your soil?

 

[JADOZE]

I'm in chaleston sc and its been 90 without rain for about 3 weeks. I've been watering twice a day. I work late so I water them at 3/4 when I'm about to go to bed. Then again before the afternoon sun, just don't get water on the leaves to avoid suburn. Misting the leaves at night seems to help also.

 

[Bleash]

...

As you can see it's mostly my jalapenos and cayennes that are really dropping bad. I'm starting to question my soil quality and maybe the genetics of the plants. They were grown from saved seed, from bonnie plant stock purchased at home depot and grown last season. Also, anyone ever see a bhut get that big and not sprout a single bud?

I always had the idea that flower droppping was only a problem for the C. Chinenses.

Here in Portugal the weather's usually hot and dry and I can tell you that I very rarely see any of my cayennes flowers drop...

Maybe you are right and its a soil quality problem.

Or maybe you're feeding them too much/too often, that causes flower drop too.

Bleash

 

[AlabamaJack]

Or just let the plants keep growing without pods until it cools down some. Bigger plants = more pods. I'm currently plucking every flower I see.

+1

That's what I have decided to do, just keepem' alive and growing through the hot summer months then when the September cool down comes, they set pods like crazy...

 

[Capsicumexanthematicus]

please try to kill all the damn slugs and snails so they are not a factor too
maybe a little epsom salt spray every two weeks
i dunno it does not look from your vid as if too much sun is a problem where you have those
you may be a little shady there as my grow is
you might try some pubescens at that location i bet they will like that there

The slugs are pretty much dead now, they were more of an issue in late April / March. I have had aphids, flea beetles, and japanese beetles since then, most of which I've also eradicated, only some plants were noticeably effected though. I haven't seen any pests for over a week now. But they might have taken a toll. There are some pine trees behind my fence which cause me to lose the sun around 5:30ish, but from 10:00am - 5:00pm it's pretty blistering where my veggies are planted. I realize that's nothing close to a lot of the gardens on here which are in the middle of open fields. I've never actually grown pubes. I might try them next year.

My plants are still pretty small, so I'll pinch until I figure they are big enough to start fruiting. It's normally not really an issue, but my plants are flowering faster than I can pinch, and some are still way too small for pods in my opinion. I've actually found several baby pods on 6-7 inch plants this year. I'm trying some different liqiud nutes to see if that slows down the flowering and bumps up the growth. They are starting to grow fast now though.

Retrospectively, I'm starting to reconsider letting that one jalapeno and cayenne set pods in April, since they might have stunted the development on those two plants a little bit. I'd been pinching off flowers indoors for over a month at that time though and just wanted to let them go. The bhuts and habs are just setting flowers for the first time now so they haven't really had a chance to drop any yet. I really hope they take after the habits of the mexibells and not the other two anuums, but I guess chinenses are supposed to be more heat tolerant. I've got my fingers crossed for the next couple weeks though and am hoping temps drop back down into the 80s. Here on the east coast it gets super humid and miserable.

 

[Capsicumexanthematicus]

How is the calcium or dolomite lime in your soil?

I've been adding calcium since April. I grew mostly maters last year and I'm thinking they might have sucked out a fair amount. I'm just seeing leaf roll in a couple plants which I thinks might be magnesium deficiency (or calcium). I'll know for sure If I get blossom end rot in the tomatoes. They were rolled pretty bad before I brought them outside, they got root bound in my grow room when they were still in 3" pots. It could also be residual stress from bugs that I'd had issues with earlier on. I do know however, that if it weren't for this unseasonably high heat and humidity that I wouldn't be having half the flower drop that I'm getting this season.

 

[mikeinsc]

I'm in chaleston sc and its been 90 without rain for about 3 weeks. I've been watering twice a day. I work late so I water them at 3/4 when I'm about to go to bed. Then again before the afternoon sun, just don't get water on the leaves to avoid suburn. Misting the leaves at night seems to help also.

I would advise against misting the leaves at night. You could potentially cause more harm than good by inviting mold and bacteria to stay. Especially so when the weather is warm and humid.

 

[Capsicumexanthematicus]

I always had the idea that flower droppping was only a problem for the C. Chinenses.

Here in Portugal the weather's usually hot and dry and I can tell you that I very rarely see any of my cayennes flowers drop...

Maybe you are right and its a soil quality problem.

Or maybe you're feeding them too much/too often, that causes flower drop too.

Bleash

That's true, I might be feeding them too much. That could also explain why my one bhut is so big but hasn't set any flowers yet. Here on the east coast US it's more the humidity than it is the heat. It does something to the pollen.

+1

That's what I have decided to do, just keepem' alive and growing through the hot summer months then when the September cool down comes, they set pods like crazy...

SEPTEMBER!? There's no way I can wait that long!