Pretty soon, you'll have the Hottest Pepper in the World growing in your garden! It's a great conversation starter with friends, and, while we don't recommend eating Carolina Reapers whole*, they actually are delicious in hot sauce and salsas. Plant them directly into rich soil, 30” apart or into containers, and grow in full sun. A lack of pollinating insects or poor air circulation may cause pepper flowers to drop instead of. Improper Pollination: Even if temperature and humidity levels are in their proper ranges, peppers may still exhibit blossom drop due to poor pollination. This will ensure they won't be shocked when first outdoors, and it also strengthens their stems with the natural breezes. Levels too low or too high can reduce the viability of the pollen and lead to blossom drop. Doing it earlier will not help the plant grow. Make sure to harden them off by bringing them outside for a couple hours of sun a day, working up to leaving them outside for a couple full days before planting. Only start fertilizing the Carolina Reaper plant after blossoms have appeared. To do this, you can use a cotton swab to swab the flower to gather pollen and move it from flower to flower. You can also hand-pollinate your pepper plants. You can gently shake your pepper plants to release pollen like the wind would do. Be sure to check out our Carolina Reaper soil and fertilizer guide for a more in-depth look. Solution: You can work to improve pollination in a few different ways. A 5-10-5 fertilizer means that the fertilizer contains 5 percent nitrogen, 10 percent phosphorus, and 5 percent potassium. When it's starting to get warm enough outside both day and night (peppers don't like temperatures below 60˚), you can bring them outdoors. The best types of fertilizer for a Carolina Reaper plant are either fish emulsion or a 5-10-5 fertilizer. Transplant the Carolina Reaper seedlings into pots once they're a few inches tall with a couple sets of leaves, and grow until there are 6 true leaves on the plant. This helps strengthen the stems and keeps the seedlings from “damping-off,” which is a devastating fungal disease which affects the new plant stem just at soil level. Once they sprout, we like to give the little Carolina Reaper seedlings a brush with our hands daily, or put a fan on them. Seeds will typically germinate in 7-21 days, but be patient, sometimes it takes longer! Soon you will have some strange looking fruit forming, the fruit will look disgusting when grown but. Use a fruit and veg feed, tomatoe feed will do fine. Then, we provide 85☏ bottom heat using a seedling heat mat, and bright light, keeping the seeds moist at all times. Once your plant has flowered it will begin to fruit, ONLY AFTER the plant has flowered should you feed it as it will help to produce a greater healthier yield. We like to place the Carolina Reaper seeds in sterile media and cover 1/4” deep. Moisture and a constant and consistent heat range must be maintained for best germination – and even with perfect conditions, every seed may not sprout. Some of the super hots take a lot longer to flower and fruit, such as the Carolina Reaper which takes 90 days until the start of harvest, or the Trinidad Scorpion peppers take even longer at 120 days, the Ghost Pepper takes 110 days, and the Aji Pepper takes 100 days, and the Orange Habanero takes about 90 days of growing before the pods start. Their flowers are actually turning into fruits but the reaper plant remains stagnant.The Carolina Reaper is a Capsicum chinense strain, and these strains do require a great deal of attention during the germination process. I'm also growing Cayenne's, Jalapeno's and Thai Dragon peppers and though they are all young plants (started them at the end of December), they are already producing fruits (still green) very well. It has just recently (in the past month or so) been staying hot regularly and getting adequate sun so I'm not sure if I should just wait a little longer, or if something else is missing? I've fertilized it and watered it of course, and it's getting sunlight (around 6 hours a day due to back yard conditions - which I know isn't ideal but use to receive less and produce more) so I'm not sure if it's just a time thing. I overwintered the plant and it appeared to work well because the plant itself looks really good right now but the problem I'm having is that it keeps flowering, then the flowers drop off but no fruit is being produced. I have this Carolina Reaper plant that I got back in December and when I received it, there were already fruits on it and it continued producing a few more fruits until it got too cold.
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