Chilli Flowers
It does not matter how many chilli plants I grow or have grown I am still left in awe at the outstanding beauty these flowers can show
Often no bigger than your finger nail but with such striking colours they are for me Queens in the flower world
Especially as from natures best you get berries being grown that bring such pain!
Growing Plants Indoors or in a Glass Greenhouse
By growing in front of Glass the temperature range can vary above 10c
Chilli Plants respond to temperature variation that triggers it genes to click on and off
This means the plant will grow vegetation and/or flowers, if it is starting to flower and then the plant experiences at least a 10c temperature variation then its flowering genes will be switched off and the vegetation gene will continue
This has an effect of stopping the new flower heads being sent nutrients so they die and drop off
Often there is little we can do to stop this as we are growing on the windowsill as that is the only place we have to grow in
You can try to alter the temperature in the room with opening windows, removing the plants from directly next to the window in the afternoon to cool the plant down and reduce the temperature variation, but the affects will still continue
This does not mean all your flowers will drop off though, if you provide the right nutrients and the soil you will get plenty of days when the temperature variation is not greater than 10c and you will still get plenty of pods growing to satisfy you
For a full explanation of what is happening please see our guide on Humidity and VPD
Growing Outdoors
If you are growing outside or in a polytunnel then the temperature variation will be reduce greatly, it may still have a day or two where it is greater than 10c but flower drop off will be only be on the occasional one rather than a few
Chilli Flower Sex
So how does a Chilli Plant reproduce?
Chilli Plants are self pollinating; producing both female and male parts, the picture below describes the parts of a chilli flower
a.) petals
b.) stigma
c.) pistil (Female)
d.) stamens (Male)
e.) blossom end
f.) calyx
The stamens produce Pollen Sacs which open up and start to spread pollen through wind and insect contact
Once the pollen comes into contact with the stigma which is the tip of the pistil the flower becomes pregnant!
How to assist with pollinating chilli flowers
Once you see your flowers starting to produce pollen you can take a cotton wool bud as you see in the picture and gently brush the cotton against the pollen sacs
This will collect pollen which you can then brush against the tip of the pistil or the stigma
You can take the same bud and pollinate all the flowers on the same plant
If you take pollen from one type of chilli and use it on another different chilli plant then you may cross breed
Once the flower has been pollinated it only takes a couple of days to go from the moment of conception to the pod starting to be produced
The flower petals will start to droop and go brown as they die
The pod will start to push through from the calyx which is in effect the plants umbilical cord to provide nutrients to the chilli being grown