I have a greenhouse I grow hydroponic chilies in. It went hard this season but being in zone 9b I have more unripe pods than ripe on many of the super hit varieties. I started a few weeks late this year also because last year spring was late and they got stunted inside.
I am not really in a position to overwinter because the plants are all in Dutch buckets and I don’t have the indoor space for them. I might do one or two but what I do have space for is a ton of clone/cuttings. I have had some luck getting chilies to root in the past although it takes a while and has a lower success rate than I have experienced with other plants like cannabis.
My question is two fold. One is has anyone done this before? Taken cuttings from your favorite plants and overwintered them for spring? Second is it seems like it might be a good idea for selling extra clones in the spring as well with the benefit of them being mature at planting and likely promising earlier fruit and ripening. I haven’t done it before, though, and wouldn’t want to over promise. I sold a ton of extra seedlings this year very fast with people begging for more. I easily could have sold a few hundred. With the added marketability of year old plants it seems like it would be a huge selling point in my climate where everyone is lamenting g their green pods as frost approached.
Any insight on these plans?
by JohnnyQTruant
3 Comments
Most people agree on the fact that cuttings don’t root too well so yeah I’ll leave you with that, you can just try to transplant to soil then overwinter the plants in soil without taking cuttings? I don’t know if this helps but I’m mostly commenting for visibility for your post. 😀
I have had some success with propagating pepper plants through cuttings. However, the success rate is very low and the production is inferior to seed grown plants.
I would recommend trying it as a fun experiment, but not as a reliable method for propagation.
Sounds like you have healthy plants I’d trim them down and put into smaller pots to over winter. Cloning would be the same thing but more steps, higher risk and much less benefits.
Your gonna have/ are likely to trim the peppers anyways to over winter, I throw a bunch of the nicer stems into water as a cheeky YOLO and if any survive and root they go in a little dirt. If they don’t they go into the compost where I should have put in the first place. In the spring time I usually have 4-9clones to bring to the plant swap but yea it’s a very low success rate and hotter peppers don’t seem to like being cloned.