indoor habanero question...

[spaceace]

this year I decided to grow some habaneros indoors. my plant has grown like a madman and constantly produces flowers. I want to pollinate it but don't know much about it. do habaneros have male and female flowers, or complete flowers? as far as the actual pollination, I know how to do. thanks for any info or tips that anyone can give

[gixxerific]

check out this link https://en.allexperts.com/q/Growing-Vegetables-740/pollination-pests.htm

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thank you for the reply. I had already read that but it made things confusing. reading that makes one believe that it has male and female flowers on the same plant. reading other articles say that pepper plants have complete flowers, male and female in the same flower. what I need to know is which one is true.

I'm also including a pic of my plant and also a pic of the flower.

my plant is 20" tall and 36" across
[img]https://www.livemembersonly.com/images/habanero.jpg[/img]

here's the flower
[img]https://www.livemembersonly.com/images/habanero_flower.jpeg[/img]

[applestar]

With peppers, male and female parts are on the same flower. In your flower photo, the long pale green/yellow part with a shiny tip is the female part called pistil, and the shorter ones with often powdery blobs on the end surrounding the pistil is the male part called stamen. The powdery stuff is the pollen, and the pollen needs to get to the base of the pistil. You can see the pepper-to-be green swelling at the base of it. You can find any number of examples if you Google Image search for "parts of flower"

Peppers, especially hot peppers are said to be self pollinating -- meaning the pollen from a plant can pollinate flowers on the same plant, and in the case of peppers, the pollen from the stamen can pollinate the pistle of the same flower. It's said that all you need to do is to gently tap the pepper plant to shake the flowers and dislodge the pollen. You can also use a soft watercolor brush to move the pollen about.

I have a Jalapeno plant that I brought inside for the first time when the weather turned cold (in the past I just let them die). It has been flowering well and fruiting. First time it happened, I was surprised -- I didn't do anything to encourage it. Since then, I have tried both shaking and paint brushing. My two sweet pepper plants, on the other hand, so far has not successfully pollinated even though one, in particular has been producing flower after flower and I have tried both above techniques.

A typical reason for blossom drop (without bearing fruit) is the temperature being too hot or too cool. So you do want to be sure that your pepper plant is happy in that regard.

Good luck with yours.

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thanks

that is exactly what I needed to know. now I just have to be patient

[OldThymer]

You also want to make sure they don't dry out too much. If they are too dry the flowers will drop. Also too much Nitrogen will prevent them from bearing fruit. I simply have a fan on my peppers. However, I have them in an enclosed grow-room. If they are out of the room I just lightly tap the flowers each day.

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just wanted to update this.

I now have 9 peppers growing and 40+ flowers. I've only pollinated some of the flowers as I'm the only person in my house that likes spicy food

my plant is now 22inces high and 42inches across. I've read that the average plant is only a little over 14inches. so whatever I'm doing, my plant must be pretty healthy

also, fertilizing with a very fine paintbrush seems to work the best as a q-tip is too big.

[gixxerific]

Sounds good space age. Peppers have always been easy for me, except last year I don't know what happened, my last surviving one was taken in a single day by a Tobacco Horn worm.

They can take some abuse though, I have always heard the worse you treat them the better they do.