Couple of questions on stem fusing

[turbare]

Hello everyone!
First of all thanks Fatalii for the great articles which got me started with everything!

I've started growing two species, Black Hungarian (Capsicum annuum) aka Blacky and White Habanero (Capsicum Chinense) aka Whitey
Seeds have sprouted around May 2014, and on June 2014 I've moved them to bigger vessels, pic below:



NOTE: Pots do have drainage.

Now, when I moved them to the vessels above, I've tied them together in 2 points with regular thread (the one used for sewing), and put them in the ground, in the hope that the stems will slowly fuse.

Close-up on the ties:
White H:
Black H:

Now, they've grown quite a bit since then, and I've made another tie higher up, this time with metal wire, not sure why I'd thought it would work out better.
The issue is, if you look at the close-up below of the blacks, you'll notice there's a really thin stem of one of the peppers exactly in the middle, and I'm not sure if I should do something about it:


1. Should I clip it somehow? Will it rot if I just cut it's top and affect the others?

2. Also, I'm not sure if it's too soon or not to tell, but it doesn't look to me like they are fusing on any of the species:

White H:


3. Also, one more thing I wanted to ask, should I cut the large leaves on top? Eg:




4. Should I just split them and take the largest one and let it grow on its own? In the long run, I plan to make them into bonchis, so I wanted to speed up the stem growth by fusing them together, but I think I might be hampering them instead of helping.


Current state:

White H:

Black H:


Sorry for the wall of text, and thank you 

[turbare]

Well, if anyone's interested on this, I've found that the black hungarians had mostly merged, while the white habaneros didn't merge at all, guess it's a species thing or something.
At this time they are in recovery mode, I've left just the strongest biggest white hab in the bunch, along with the 3 biggest black hungarians, tied them up a bit more, and we'll see what happens.

[turbare]

Hmm, after a few days, the blacks recovered and came back from being wilted, however the white habanero's are still wilted and seem to be dying out
I watered them, made sure they're in the shade and that they are not too moist, still nothing for now.
I keep hoping that overnight I'll get a nice surprise when I wake up, would be a shame to lose my most hot ones.

[akselsson1]

Fusing stems takes time, they must grow big enough, and I'd wait all summer for it to happen. Thight the system must be, or they will just grow apart.
It is going to take time, but if you're succesful I think they will become out very nice one day