Bell Pepper Flowers Falling Off

[gardengirl55]

Can someone tell me why the flowers keep falling off my bell pepper plant? It can't be the humidity or temp level because the room I have these in stays pretty much the same all year round.  I've got tons of flowers, but, they keep falling off.  I've grown g.peppers before with a few flowers falling, but, this time it seems different. (yes, i'm using different seeds this time)

[katyag247]

Blossoms can drop if they don't get pollinated.  There are different ways to cause pollination to happen.  I use Aerogarden's Be the Bee pollinating tool but you can use an old electric toothbrush to gently "buzz" the blossoms.  Do a search on YouTube for "how to pollinate pepper plants" and you will find other methods such as giving your plants a gentle shake.  Khang Starr demonstrates this in one of his videos.  He also talks about other reasons for blossom drop.

[gardengirl55]

the necks of the flowers are falling off too. seems right after the blossom falls, and, a pepper wants to start growing, it falls off at the 'neck'. 

[katyag247]

By blossom, I meant the entire flower bud structure which includes the little stem, not just the flowering parts.  When there is no pollination, the entire flower bud falls off the plant.  

[gardengirl55]

Thanks    I'll give them a little love and shake them.  We'll see if that helps.  

[katyag247]

Are you familiar with Pepper Geek on YouTube?  He said in a video about flower bud drop that peppers sometimes overproduce buds and then drop some naturally.  I didn't know that.     His videos are also worth watching.  When you mentioned that the flowers fall off before the stems, I did a search to see if I could find more information about what causes that, but no luck.  Good luck with your pepper! 

[gardengirl55]

Thanks again for the research!  I'm doing the YouTube thing as well. I kinda like the Aerogarden Experiment guy.  In one of his videos, he shows how many hydroponic gardens he has in one room.  Its a lot 

[lynnee]

gardengirl55, do you have any peppers at all developing on your plants? As katyag247 said, flowers will fall off if the pepper plant lacks energy to develop all of them.

All of the flowers and baby peppers dropped off one of my Poblano plants, when it was sitting in a warm draft from the furnace. Closing the furnace hot air register more or less fixed that problem.

However, what works best for me with peppers is to supplement the AG nutes with Koolbloom, which I learned about from mike. Koolbloom helps plants to produce blooms AND to hold the fruit that sets after pollination. You only need about 3ml of Koolbloom per gallon of water--and too much can cause blossom drop by shocking the plant.

[Shawn]

Thy can also fall off if there is a draft on them, temp change in the room, pollinating too roughly or can fall off just to give other buds a chance to get the energy as well

[mike]

I usually increase the Bloom Booster a bit when more blooms drop than they should.It doesn't hurt to do a rinse and refill, as well.