Hey everyone, new member of the forum here... hope to be able to contribute in the future but right now I'm in my second year of growing hot peppers and I'm having a bit of a problem.
My chocolate habaneros are starting to drop their leaves. One plant is almost bare at this point and the leaves on the other plant are droopy and weak.
Here are a couple pictures:
Practically dead plant:
Droopy/ weak leaf plant
A little bit of background information:
-I am located in Southern New Jersey (Zone 7a according to this site: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/#)
-The plants were started from seed by me, indoors.
-They are currently growing in a raised bed I built. there should be plenty of drainage
-When transplanted, I placed them in a hole with a mixture of manure, sand and my existing top soil.
-I've given them 2 doses of Great White mycorrhizae (one after transplanting and one about a month ago)
-I can't give you a pH reading at the moment, but if need be I can go get a tester
-The get fed with "Alaska" brand Fish Emulsion about every other week and sprayed with Epsom Salts in between those feedings.
I water when the soil is dry, but this summer has been pretty crazy with rain storms so they have gotten a weird watering schedule. 2 weeks ago, we had HUGE rain storm come through and drop about 8 inches on us in a few hours. It was shortly after this that the one plant started to go on me. I figured it was because of too much water... but the other plant was fine until the other day (after it had plenty of time to dry out). So that makes me think something else is going wrong here.
the soaker hose you see is not running. I had it there on a timer for a long weekend I was going away when I knew the temps were going to be crazy hot and I didnt want everything getting scorched. It ran for 20 mins in the morning every other day for the 4 day weekend (so it ran twice). I just haven't gotten around to wrapping the whole thing up.
Does anyone have any insight on what could be the problem? The leaves seem to just wilt and break off very easily (almost perfectly) at the stem. The stems of the plant seem totally fine and not weak at all, it is just the leaves. I have been searching around on other threads and someone else mentioned leaf drop like this could be due to a severe potassium deficiency, but the fish emulsion contains potash so I wouldn't think that would be the problem.
So... Is this a disease? Is it just watering issues and should I avoid going anywhere near it with water for a bit? (the top few inches of soil are pretty dry at the moment) or Is it some sort of nutrient deficiency?
Thank you in advance!
-Tom
My chocolate habaneros are starting to drop their leaves. One plant is almost bare at this point and the leaves on the other plant are droopy and weak.
Here are a couple pictures:
Practically dead plant:
Droopy/ weak leaf plant
A little bit of background information:
-I am located in Southern New Jersey (Zone 7a according to this site: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/#)
-The plants were started from seed by me, indoors.
-They are currently growing in a raised bed I built. there should be plenty of drainage
-When transplanted, I placed them in a hole with a mixture of manure, sand and my existing top soil.
-I've given them 2 doses of Great White mycorrhizae (one after transplanting and one about a month ago)
-I can't give you a pH reading at the moment, but if need be I can go get a tester
-The get fed with "Alaska" brand Fish Emulsion about every other week and sprayed with Epsom Salts in between those feedings.
I water when the soil is dry, but this summer has been pretty crazy with rain storms so they have gotten a weird watering schedule. 2 weeks ago, we had HUGE rain storm come through and drop about 8 inches on us in a few hours. It was shortly after this that the one plant started to go on me. I figured it was because of too much water... but the other plant was fine until the other day (after it had plenty of time to dry out). So that makes me think something else is going wrong here.
the soaker hose you see is not running. I had it there on a timer for a long weekend I was going away when I knew the temps were going to be crazy hot and I didnt want everything getting scorched. It ran for 20 mins in the morning every other day for the 4 day weekend (so it ran twice). I just haven't gotten around to wrapping the whole thing up.
Does anyone have any insight on what could be the problem? The leaves seem to just wilt and break off very easily (almost perfectly) at the stem. The stems of the plant seem totally fine and not weak at all, it is just the leaves. I have been searching around on other threads and someone else mentioned leaf drop like this could be due to a severe potassium deficiency, but the fish emulsion contains potash so I wouldn't think that would be the problem.
So... Is this a disease? Is it just watering issues and should I avoid going anywhere near it with water for a bit? (the top few inches of soil are pretty dry at the moment) or Is it some sort of nutrient deficiency?
Thank you in advance!
-Tom