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Pinching for Cut Flower Production

Pinching for Cut-Flower Production

Many annual cut flower crops with a naturally branching habit can benefit from pinching. Pinching is the practice of removing the central growing point of the plant.


Advantages of Pinching Flowers

Some of the reasons to pinch are:

  • increased productivity of the plant
  • increased number of harvestable stems
  • denser, bushier plant habit

Pinching and Days to Harvest

Pinching will delay flowering time. The amount of time it sets the plant back will vary a little bit depending on the crop and when it's pinched and the stage of the plant. In general, we see pinching setting things back maybe two to three weeks compared to if we left them un-pinched. So, that's something to consider.


When to Pinch

We’re going to share some tips and tricks today for things to consider when pinching plants, but it's also good to keep in mind that there's a learning curve to this process and over time you'll develop an intuition within your own production system and the crops that you're growing about when it makes sense to pinch to provide the most benefits to you.

We're going to demonstrate pinching on a few different common cut flower crops. And before we go into the individual crops, just a couple of guidelines to keep in mind is we typically pinch when plants have three to five sets of true leaves. This is often a good indicator for most crops. And this is also typically when plants are between 8 to 12 inches tall. We also want to make sure that we are pinching while the plants are still growing vegetatively before they've started to flower and put a lot of energy into flowering production. Those three things are kind what to consider in terms of timing of pinching.


How to Pinch

We're going to take a pinch off of this marigold plant and this plant at this point has—I'm going to point out the sets of true leaves so 1, 2, 3, 4, now 5—so it's five sets of true leaves. And it’s tall enough to pinch.

What we're doing when we take a pinch is we're removing the central growing tip and the effect of that is that the plant will then redirect its energy into these lateral shoots. Instead of having one tall thick central stalk with really one big bloom on it, what we are going to get is all of these side shoots, growing and elongating and hopefully yielding stems that are long enough to cut. Instead of one large central stem, we'll ideally have four to six side shoots that we'll be able to cut and harvest.

I'm going to show what that looks like here. So I'm going to cut—1, 2, 3—I'm leaving three sets of true leaves. That should give us six side shoots. I'm going to cut right there. And I want to cut right above this node. I don't want to leave a lot of stem above that node. But I want to cut right close to the node, but without taking off these lateral side shoots. So there's 1, 2, 3 sets of true leaves that we're going to cut it to. I'm going to take a pinch right there.

Some crops like zinnia, amaranth, cosmos, and marigold have a growth habit where it's really easy to count the nodes and to have a sense where on the plant you're pinching. Some crops like strawflower have a much denser plant habit and it can be a little tricky and very time consuming to try and count the nodes for taking a pinch. This is an example of a crop where it's also effective to just remove the center of the plant, maybe 3 to 5 inches. You can see that this plant is really densely branching at the base. There's going to be a lot of side shoots coming up from there. And so instead of spending time counting all of those or thinking too much about this, we're just going to take a pinch right here. Pretty low in the plant. And that still leaves a lot of side shoots that are going to come up and fill in. So this is just an example of a crop where to pinch is not quite as straightforward. Strawflower really does benefit from a pinch and this will help balance out the plant and result in more uniform stems when it does flower.


Pinching Flower Seedlings While Still in the Tray

For some cut flower crops, it can sometimes be an option or be beneficial to pinch the plants in the trays before transplanting. I have two trays of zinnias here at two different stages of growth. The one on the left is younger. This is just about ready to transplant. These plants have a few sets of true leaves. They're ready to go in the ground.

If you were looking for efficiency gains in the pinching process, you could potentially pinch the plants right here in the trays. I wouldn't want to pinch them if they were much smaller than this or had fewer internodes.

And right here is a tray of zinnias that have been in the trays too long. These plants have gotten root-bound and have even started to flower a little bit in the trays. So sometimes that happens. And so pinching here can actually be a really good option for resetting the plants. Or if transplanting continues to be delayed, this can be a way to help redirect some of the plant's energy towards a more branching habit and might be a way to sort of reinvigorate these plants as they're going into the ground.

So an example of a pinch here, you can see we have several sets of true leaves. You can see the side shoots that want to start growing here. And you could take a pinch at a couple of different points. You could pinch here. You could even do a really deep pinch here, leaving just those two sets of leaves there. Either one would help reset the plants. And even though it would delay the flowering time a little bit, this is probably the best option for getting marketable blooms off of this batch of seedlings.


When is it Too Late to Pinch my Plants?

We get questions sometimes about pinching, and one of the common ones is, "When is it too late to pinch my plants? Have I missed the window?" And so I have an example here of a plant that is maybe a little bit outside of the window of when it would be ideal to take a pinch. This is a cosmos. It is quite tall at this point. It has maybe seven or eight nodes. And it's also starting to form a bud. So this is a plant that has already put a lot of energy into upward growth and into that central stem. And so you can still take a pinch off of this plant. It's a little bit outside that window of maybe three to five true leaves, and it's starting to flower. It's not too late, but there are maybe some consequences of taking a pinch outside of maybe the ideal window. And so what I will do with this plant is that I will take a pretty deep cut. I’m going to cut it right here.

The consequences of pinching later in the plant's life at a later stage of development is that you probably are going to delay flowering by quite a bit more than if you had pinched at a little bit of an earlier stage. You can think about it in that the plant has already put a lot of energy into that center stalk, and it's going to have to redirect into these side shoots. And so you are going to probably see a delayed flowering time. However, while not the ideal stage for pinching, it is still worth the effort.


Pinching to Reset the Plant

Another common question we get is when plants are flowering on very short or unhealthy plants and wondering what the cause is or if there's anything that can be done about it. This is an example of a celosia that has clearly experienced some stress because it is flowering on a plant with very little vegetation, almost no branching growth. This flowering is a sign that the plant has experienced some stress somewhere along the way. Maybe it was root bound in the trays. Maybe it has experienced transplant shock. Either way, this is not the desired outcome from a celosia.

Pinching can be a way of resetting the plant and helping to redirect the plant's energy from flowering, which is what it's trying to do right now, into more vegetative growth.

I'm going to take actually a pretty deep pinch on this celosia. I'm going to leave two sets of true leaves here. That will, again, reset the plant. This is a helpful practice for both cut flower and landscape use so that you can have productive plants flowering all season long.

In a home garden setting, it can sometimes be helpful to pinch out the first flower on young plants, especially on plants with a branching habit to help kind of redirect some of the plants energy into vegetative growth early in its life. And so this is a nice healthy zinnia plant here. It has a first flower and the plant has already started putting a lot of energy into that flower while it still has a lot of vegetative growing left to do. And so what I'm going to do is just remove that first flower. And what that will do again is to help kind of redirect the plants energy towards vegetative growth at this point. And that should help encourage more blooms and productivity over a longer season.


How to Pinch Plants

There's a couple simple methods for taking a pinch and one is to use pruners or snips. This is particularly effective on crops with thicker, woodier stems. It also can be effective, especially on maybe younger plants where you're taking a smaller pinch, to just use your fingers to remove that growing tip.

While it sounds simple, pinching can be a complex topic and we hope that you found this video helpful.



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