I recently started growing peppers in my hydroponic setup! They’ve begun blooming but haven’t transitioned to fruiting yet. The flowers and buds keep falling off instead of developing fruit. I have an oscillating fan running for 12 hours a day, split into three different time periods. I’ve also tried hand-pollinating them with a toothbrush. Has anyone who’s grown peppers experienced this or have any advice?
They’re kept at a relatively stable water level by my setup (a combination DWC/NFT system), and I’m using the General Hydroponics nutrient line for fertilizer.
by Fit-Egg4645
6 Comments
You could try shaking the bush, that’s what I started doing cause my hands are not made for fine motorwork and I was knocking off flowers sometimes.
You did flush your res and switch your GH to early flower dosing ?
I had exactly the same problem, wasn’t able to figure this out. Please let me know if you find out.
Good luck!
Had the exact same issue with same nutrients. I think that GH is a bit hot and you need to put less. Possibly too much nitrogen is causing flower drop. The one large plant I have looks beautiful and is lush and healthy, lots of flowers but they keep dropping. But the runt of the litter, the one I cared for the least and used just A/B nutes for was the only one that fruited. Sometimes less is more im guessing. I’m still very new to this hobby. Learning and making lots of mistakes. Good luck
Sounds like you just need more practice being an indoor bee 🐝
Peppers are easily pollinated with your finger, just go around touching the sex organs of the different flowers. I know pollinating sounds graphic 😂
Flower drop in my experience is either light stress, heat stress, or nutrient stress. I run hydro too.
What is you PH and EC? Keep your pH at 5.8-6.2, they like the low side of that. Peppers can be heavy feeders but they can also be temperamental when overfed. They don’t show burning as fast so depending on your nutrient aim for a 1.0-1.5EC. . You can walk that up when they start fruiting. What line are you using for nutrients?
If they are in deep water culture you need to do your best to keep the solution around 68-70F. Most of the time it’s heat but light stress on my indoor ones causes this too. It’s the main stress on my outdoor ones.
Make sure you have good aeration in the root zone.
For pollinating I had the best luck just bumping the flowers with my hand. If you have the space try growing one out bigger and see if you have the same issues. It’s going to sound weird but from the same packet, sprouted at the same time, in the same media, same tray. My bigger habanero plants fruited much quicker and put on much more fruit when they were allowed to veg out more by popping off the flowers. Depending on the plant itself maybe it just wants to be bigger before it fruits.
Light stress seems less likely, no bleaching in the pic. What is your PPFD? Aim for 500-700 umol at the top of the plant. They don’t take a crazy amount of light but they bloom much more happily when it’s brighter.
Add airflow. Also, you should probably only have 1 plant in that area. You’re planting Density is way too high.