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overwintering Winter-Summer in OZ "Comparison" / Aussie Blabberers
- Thread starter Nova
- Start date
That bad, Mezo? :\
Well, I won't be far behind. Broad mite have appeared on several plants over the last couple days. I'm In the process of neeming them all (done half today and the rest can wait until tomorrow now) and placing an order for more Californicus mites tonight. So friggin' pissed off right now. Also seen a few fruit flies hanging around.
Someone tell me why spring/summer is so good again?
Looks like the growing season is just starting for you fellers. Congrats 
Hey Megamoo, Nova and myself were doing an air pruning experiment(mentioned about a million pages ago in this thread).
I never found out how Nova went but mine was a bit of a failure in the end.
I started them inside and they grew extremely well and vigorous. I then took them outside which is when I had trouble.
I was finding that they were drying out real quick in our heat and when I watered the water seemed to go down so far then start to come out of the holes in the pot which stopped alot of water getting right down to the bottom of the roots.
I looked into it and I think Nova mentioned that it looks like you really need a type of flood and drain system where you can soak them in some nutrients/water then drain it off.
I started dousing some in a bucket of water every day which worked better but still needed more.
Micca
Hey Gas have you tried soapy water yet? i tried it over the weekend & it seems to have worked.
Ive got a 2lt pump sprayer (hand held jobbie) i put a squirt of biodegradable dish washing liquid in there & sprayed the infested plants, it seems to have killed all the aphids & no ill affects on the plants (unlike white oil) which killed about a hundred plants.
Mezo.
Ive got a 2lt pump sprayer (hand held jobbie) i put a squirt of biodegradable dish washing liquid in there & sprayed the infested plants, it seems to have killed all the aphids & no ill affects on the plants (unlike white oil) which killed about a hundred plants.
Mezo.
How's everyone been growing?
Haven't been on to much of late, just started to plant out side.
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/35192-junglerain-2012-2013-hot-chilli-season/
Anyone else got there 2012_2013 season going yet?
I should be ready be the end of the week...fingers crossed...
Haven't been on to much of late, just started to plant out side.
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/35192-junglerain-2012-2013-hot-chilli-season/
Anyone else got there 2012_2013 season going yet?
I should be ready be the end of the week...fingers crossed...
Your plants are looking great there Grant as usual. looks like a good amount of space for growing your jungle there.
I have just started transitioning my little babies outside so looks like the season has started for me. My overwinters are just starting to take off and some are now starting to flower.
Have a great season and will be looking forward to drooling over some piccies.
Happy Chilli Growing,
Micca
I have just started transitioning my little babies outside so looks like the season has started for me. My overwinters are just starting to take off and some are now starting to flower.
Have a great season and will be looking forward to drooling over some piccies.
Happy Chilli Growing,
Micca
Soap is great! Probably my most preferred "safe" spray. I used neem though because that is all I had on hand yesterday arvo.
So getting things going here just waiting for seeds to start popping up, been two weeks now so cant be much longer, fingers crossed.
I overwintered a T Scopion that didnt perform at all well just dropped leaves and flowers all summer and only got a few pods off of it.
So come winter i kind of neglected it a bit, pruned it back and forgot it.
Back in late july started showing signs of new growth so i thought i would do an experiment with it top see if i could get it to perform.
Bought it in from the rain to dry it out and started giving it a dose of iron sulphate in an attempt to lower the soil ph.
By the way i havent repotted.
Things were looking good nice new growth and a good colour and tons of flower buds not giving too much water and ph coming down.
But today the same signs from last year are beginng to show and what i suspect with the plant is it's sterile or close to it and it's a bit of a mongrel.
Here are some photos of some of the flowers showing very little or no pollen.
Two day flower
Flowers that opened today, photos taken at 1pm in the afternoon
Also today new leaf growth started to look crinkly at edges not all over the plant just a section.
Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions on how this plant looks and wether im wasting my time and money by trying to make it produce.
Like i said earlier i think this is a dud of a plant but i just cant bring myself to pulling it up.
Cherrs guys.
Kevvy
I overwintered a T Scopion that didnt perform at all well just dropped leaves and flowers all summer and only got a few pods off of it.
So come winter i kind of neglected it a bit, pruned it back and forgot it.
Back in late july started showing signs of new growth so i thought i would do an experiment with it top see if i could get it to perform.
Bought it in from the rain to dry it out and started giving it a dose of iron sulphate in an attempt to lower the soil ph.
By the way i havent repotted.
Things were looking good nice new growth and a good colour and tons of flower buds not giving too much water and ph coming down.
But today the same signs from last year are beginng to show and what i suspect with the plant is it's sterile or close to it and it's a bit of a mongrel.
Here are some photos of some of the flowers showing very little or no pollen.
Two day flower
Flowers that opened today, photos taken at 1pm in the afternoon
Also today new leaf growth started to look crinkly at edges not all over the plant just a section.
Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions on how this plant looks and wether im wasting my time and money by trying to make it produce.
Like i said earlier i think this is a dud of a plant but i just cant bring myself to pulling it up.
Cherrs guys.
Kevvy
I know how you feel after losing all mine early this year to #$%&^*(*(^&^$# broad mites.
Things I tried that didn't work:
White Oil, Neem, Pyrethrin, Confidor, Mavrik, Garlic/Chilli/Soap spray.
About a month ago I started seeing the cursed whiteflies hanging around and have been drenching my new plants with Natrasoap once a week.
So far so good......
......if that doesn't work I'll try Wettable Sulfur and then move on to more drastic measures like Kelthane (Dicofol) and Kill-A-Mite (Abamectin).......
......if that doesn't work, I'll try fine netting and biological predators......
......if that doesn't work, I give up.
....
I hate being the bearer of bad news but.... nothing works.
If you end up taking the chemical road, rotate the use of two or more different ones. The friggin' things grow resistance like you wouldn't believe. A couple years ago I hit 'em with Rogor, worked like a charm the first time I used it, second time, utterly useless. As sulfur works by poisoning the buggers, it too needs to be rotated.
Soap/natrasoap is great but requires frequent application (as it sounds like you already know). The second you get lazy.........
Most success I've had so far is with predator mites (Californicus). All was going great until bloody whitefly bought that sh*t back. >.<
Was going to order another lot to release but find out they are unavailable from my source ATM.
For sure! Thing is though, you don't think about that (or choose to ignore it) when dealing with broad mite. The frustration they cause is blinding.
I learned the hard way but at least I have a decent good guy population back and building now. I won't touch chemicals again, but I am also hesitant to even use natural solutions in the form of spray. Pretty sure I wiped out my Californicus mite population using neem yesterday. The plan was to make a dent in the newly growing broad mite population and then to drop another lot of Californicus this week to replace the ones that I had to sacrifice. Go to order them last night and they are unavailable.
Yeah, the main thing for me is that there are great chilli's that can be grown, but just not available at the local fruit/veg shop.
I hate being the bearer of bad news but.... nothing works.
If you end up taking the chemical road, rotate the use of two or more different ones. The friggin' things grow resistance like you wouldn't believe. A couple years ago I hit 'em with Rogor, worked like a charm the first time I used it, second time, utterly useless. As sulfur works by poisoning the buggers, it too needs to be rotated.
Soap/natrasoap is great but requires frequent application (as it sounds like you already know). The second you get lazy.........
Most success I've had so far is with predator mites (Californicus). All was going great until bloody whitefly bought that sh*t back. >.<
Was going to order another lot to release but find out they are unavailable from my source ATM.
The f**kers definitely seem to be all but unstoppable.
Good point on rotating poisons and you're right about keeping up the applications.......it's hard to trust the missus to keep it up when I have to go away for a while.
I might give the predators a go when they're available again and use some fine mesh netting to try to keep the whiteflies (they seem to be the main vector) off them. It probably also means I might have to give the plants the occasional shake when flowering or artificially pollinate I guess......
I remember hearing ages ago that napthalene flakes are supposed to help.....couldn't hurt I guess.
There was a certain tool on better homes and gardens that reckoned basil keeps whitefly away (which is bs, the whiteflies here seem to love it).
That's definitely preferable as some of the "better" poisons have witholding periods which worry me a bit.......especially when you want to pluck a nice ripe chilli off to chew on.