Why Wind Makes Pepper Plants Strong

Good morning to you all. I checked out this beautiful pepper farm. The weather has been lovely recently, with little to no rain so thank God for that. And I was impressed to see that these little pepper plants were doing well. As I was admiring them, the wind began to pick up, and I noticed that they were swaying gently in the breeze. That made me think about something I wanted to share and I've done that in the video.

The stem holds the fruit of the pepper plant. When it is ripe enough to be picked from the plant, the fruit is very heavy. The stem of the pepper plant that holds the fruit can not support the weight of the fruit. The stem will break and the plant of the pepper will have been destroyed and that would make waste all the effort that was put into growing it.

The plants are able to withstand the weight of their fruit but the problem is because of the wind, also the solution is because of the problem.

Don't worry if you're confused because I'll explain.

The wind shakes the young plants and in this way it forces the stems of the pepper plants to become thicker on the outside, it's a genetic survival response of the plant. What the plant does with its energy to make the outside of the stem thicker is to make a hard woody material in the stem.

The part where the branches divide is subjected to a lot of pressure. The plant toughens up the outside part of the stem where the fibers are the toughest. It creates a hard woody material in the stems that are able to hold their own under a lot of pressure. It basically creates an iron bracket and distributes the weight to the main trunk of the plant.

So the entire weight is distributed throughout the main stem of the plant so that it doesn’t break at one weak point. Without the wind and early stage development of the stems the pepper plants would have very thin and soft stems and would never be able to develop the tough fibers in the stems to be able to hold a heavy crop.

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