Flower Drop and Pollination

Right, Now this is an issue that has affected many chilli growers, from beginners to seasoned growers. One of the biggest reasons for Flower drop (the flowers falling from the plant without producing fruit) is a lack of pollination. If flowers are left unpollinated they only last for a certain amount of time before they WILL fall off the plant without fruiting. If growing your plants indoors or inside a greenhouse this is almost certainly the reason for flower drop. To avoid this there are many things you can do, if you live in a sunny area one of the best ways to pollinate flowers is to do it the natural way, simply place plants outside by brightly coloured plants and let the bee's do their job of transferring pollen from flower to flower.

If however you are like me and live in the UK where summers are short and weather is, well.... Rubbish. Then your best bet is to use a small soft paint brush, dampen it, then LIGHTLY brush the centre of each flower, going back and forth across your flowers so that all have been brushed twice and had pollen from each plant on them.

Young chilli forming

Doing this daily you will soon start to see small lumps forming in the centre of the flower, keep brushing the pollen from flower to flower and within about a week the flowers should start to brown and fall off, leaving the lump at the end of the stem. Congratulations, this is your first chilli!



If however you have been doing this and plants still lose all of the flowers it produces (some flowers will drop anyway but not all), it may be one of the other causes. Try cutting back on watering as too much water will make you lose your flowers for sure, keep the top soil from drying out completely, but don't let it get squidgy! This may take some playing with but just make sure your plants are getting enough light and water and you can't really go wrong.

In the case of Fertilizing your plants. You can buy special chilli feed (chilli focus to name one) but I find that a half strength dosage of tomato feed works best, feeding your plants only once per week. Other people I have spoke to prefer to feed plants fortnightly instead of once a week but I am yet to give this a go. I'll let you know how I get on with my next batch!