fluorescent lights and pod ripening off the plant

10 years ago

Back in Nov I bought a little bhut plant from a local nursery that I was going to overwinter. Colder weather took longer than normal to set in this year even for FL and it's been doing great. It set one pod first week of December. I wasn't really expecting it to even ripen all the way and was thinking of maybe even topping the plant. After seeing the weather was going to be a little too chilly for the chili this week, a few days ago I brought it inside and topped it and put it under lights. I picked the one pod off the top portion of the plant before I chucked it and just left it sitting on the table. I went in today to check on the flat I have germinating and was surprised to see the pod was starting to ripen. Was it just time for it to ripen or are the lights helping that along?

Before topping (you can see the green pod on the left):

Today:

Comments (6)

thepodpiper
10 years ago
Just doing what it does naturally.
ka0ttic
Original Author
10 years ago
Well of course. But you're saying it would've ripened at the same rate if it was still on the plant? Did it ripen faster because I pulled the pod? Did the fluoros have anything to do with it? Or is it all just coincidence?

I'm still pretty new to all this and this is my first year growing "seriously." Actually this will be my first bhut pod ever lol. I didn't think it had been there long enough to be that close to ripening so I was surprised when I saw it had turned half orange in 2 days.
esox07 (4b) Wisconsin
10 years ago
Picking them tends to hasten the ripening process in my experience. however, if they are not close to ripening already, they probably won't ripen after being picked.
Bruce
tomt226
10 years ago
The green pods have heat, bhut they dry a weird color. Good in verde sauce...
seysonn
10 years ago
Sometimes the ripening of a pod can be an immature kind. Or it can be that it was almost ready to change color when you picked it. I thing in this case probably harvesting hastened it. I don,t think fluoro had anything to do with it. I have ripened many pepper pods on the counter top in my kitchen. I have managed to germinate quite few seeds from those that turn color on the counter (shishito, serrano, gypsy, anaheim, chilaca ).. One of them did not germinate and that was a pepperoncino that I had harvested green and it turned red on the counter.

On the other hand, if you want to use the pod as spice, it matters very little how it turned color. Unless you want ro save seeds from it.
thepodpiper
10 years ago
How a pepper ripens has no bearing on whether the seeds are good or not, you may have just had a bit of bad luck with those pepperoncini seeds. I have taken seeds from peppers that were not even ripened fully and they germinated just fine.