Aggressive pepper pruning

I pinch most of mine back hard when they are young, and the branch out then low down and away they go. They do like a bit of a feed from time to time 

It'll be interesting to see the difference in your harvests between the pruned and unpruned plants 

I've been doing exactly this experiment with Apache, Scotch Bonnet and Havana Gold. They were sown way back in Jan under LEDs, so the unpinched Apache now have full sized green chilli's, whereas the pitched ones are stating to bush out nicely, but still trying to flower furiously, so picking off all the buds for now. In previous years the Apaches have just seemed to fade away after the first flush of fruit, so this will be interesting to see how they develop.

Unpinched Havana Gold is quite top heavy now with plenty of fruit developing, while the pitched one is starting to branch. The Scotch Bonnet is the slowest of all with even the unpinched one only just starting to flower.

I love an experiment

The Scotch Bonnet is the slowest of all with even the unpinched one only just starting to flower.

I grew these once and they are really slow to get going.  I pinched out the branches and ended up with a very wide plant, laden with fruit.  I was picking them from the greenhouse end October/beginning November I think.  Hugely productive plants, but take a long time to get there.  Amazingly fragrant fruit as well, with a rich fruity flavour, as well as the kick of a mule