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Nearly all my plants are getting distorted leaves

S

svtcontour

Hi guys, I'm at the end of my rope with this. I thought it was too much fertilizer so I have not added any more for 2 months but it continues to get worse. Nearly every plant is getting this leaf distortion. Leaves curl downward or inward, they are stunted, feel dry and leathery. The veins are distorted as well. Again, no signs of any pests. Here are some pics with varying degree of the problem from very little to very bad. THe very bad is total twisting and distortion to the point that you can barely recognize that its a leaf. On these plants with heavily distorted leaves, the fruit is also stunted so fruit that is normally elongated, look more round and short. This happens on the new growth. Old growth is fine. Might it be calcium deficiency?

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SV the problem with your plants and mine is Fall. The plants will do that as our night temps are now lower, and it has been very cool lately. Shortly a lot of the leaves will fall off. We dont have a long growing season brother.
Oh yeah and i still have your choco bhut. :)

Cheers
 
my superchile and ceyenne seem to be on their last legs(I put them into the garage at night and our night temps were in the 0 - 8C. leaves wilted fast, brown spots started to appear, I am trying to keep them alive to salvage the remaining fruit both are 2 seasons old now. Though my goats weed were right beside them in the garage, the g/w is a more hearty plant. My hot lemon leaves have all curled upward, even though I bring them in at night, we had some afternoon temps that started out a 14C then by 4pm the thermometre was registering 7C and I think they took a hit. All the plants have been in the house for 3/4 days now.
 
svtcontour said:
The veins are distorted as well. Again, no signs of any pests. Here are some pics with varying degree of the problem from very little to very bad. THe very bad is total twisting and distortion to the point that you can barely recognize that its a leaf.
Click to expand...

Did you look w/ a magnifying glass? Mites are really hard to see. Every time I get leaves like that, I assume mites, treat as such and it goes away.
 
We need to hook up then for the chocolate bhut :) Anyone else around here that you know of that is in toronto or surrounding cities? We should do a wing day somewhere.

Anyway as far as the distorted leaves. See mine started about a month or almost a month and a half ago when the weather was still fine. I just cant figure it out. I dont think its over fertilizing because the plants got no added fertz since then. I'm truely at a loss.

madhatter said:
SV the problem with your plants and mine is Fall. The plants will do that as our night temps are now lower, and it has been very cool lately. Shortly a lot of the leaves will fall off. We dont have a long growing season brother.
Oh yeah and i still have your choco bhut. :)

Cheers
Click to expand...
 
I didnt use a magnifying glass but would they be smaller than spider mites? I can usually see those if I look carefully. Are there smaller mite varieties? Maybe I should mist the plants 2-3 times (once week) with insecticidal soap, with the focus being the bottom of the leaves. I'll do that in the evenings because I think spraying while its sunny is a no no with those sprays.

ZanderSpice said:
Did you look w/ a magnifying glass? Mites are really hard to see. Every time I get leaves like that, I assume mites, treat as such and it goes away.
Click to expand...
 
Is it possible that someone sprayed herbicide nearby? Almost all of my peppers grew leaves like that back in May after they applied an herbicide to the grass near my patio. They all eventually grew out of it but it set them back at least a few weeks. Better in May than July!
 
I agree with Indiana_Jesse, I had the same problem earlier this summer and posted a few pics on this forum, the cause (although not chemically verified through tissue analysis) was auxinic herbicide damage; I sent pictures to Professor Dean Riechers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who indicated the most probable cause. 2,4-D and dicamba are prime suspects. The leaves in your pictures are showing what is called epinasty, leaf curling. Peppers are very susceptible to these herbicides so if you or a neighbor has used them recently, this could be the problem. The auxinic herbicides stimulates the plant to grow to death if the right amount is used. All of my plants came out of it, but you can still see the affected growth. In fact those that were in pots are still very affected.
 
Maybe that could be possible...I have neighbours to the left and right of me so maybe they were spraying something on a windy day and it carried over. Now I wonder should I snip off the bad leaves or leave them.

Indiana_Jesse said:
Is it possible that someone sprayed herbicide nearby? Almost all of my peppers grew leaves like that back in May after they applied an herbicide to the grass near my patio. They all eventually grew out of it but it set them back at least a few weeks. Better in May than July!
Click to expand...
 
This is the exact same problem I and a few other folks have posted about. It isn't bugs. It isn't a pesticide or herbicide that was sprayed close. It's a nutrient problem. Period. The plants I have in my homemade growing mix have been effected by it, none of the plants in a commercial potting soil I used were effected. NONE! I've tried adding magnesium and seen some improvement. Epsom salt applied to the leaves seemed to slow the problem down too. Now I'm checking pH levels to see if that could be it.

THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM.

Good luck.
 
Oh man I hope you make a breakthrough. If you do, share it with and if I find anything, I'll let you know as well. I took two of my plants and added some dolomite as a test to see if at all it could be calcium. Although I think dolomite has magnesium as well so I'm hoping it will help. These plants are a good size and I want them to recover because I want to overwinter them.

Maybe the best thing would be to prune the bad bits off, pluck off all fruit, all buds and just repot and hope they recover.

patrick said:
This is the exact same problem I and a few other folks have posted about. It isn't bugs. It isn't a pesticide or herbicide that was sprayed close. It's a nutrient problem. Period. The plants I have in my homemade growing mix have been effected by it, none of the plants in a commercial potting soil I used were effected. NONE! I've tried adding magnesium and seen some improvement. Epsom salt applied to the leaves seemed to slow the problem down too. Now I'm checking pH levels to see if that could be it.

THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
 
I know in my case this year it was in fact an herbicide issue. Nutrient problems can indeed cause similar symptoms though. The first (and last) time I used an "organic" soil several years ago, many of the plants had the same symptoms. So it can either be nutrient or herbicide. It does not take much herbicide drift to cause such symptoms. It helped in my case knowing what the problem was, all I needed to do was wait and the plants grew out of it. If it is a nutrient problem, that can be tricky!
 
patrick said:
This is the exact same problem I and a few other folks have posted about. It isn't bugs. It isn't a pesticide or herbicide that was sprayed close. It's a nutrient problem. Period. The plants I have in my homemade growing mix have been effected by it, none of the plants in a commercial potting soil I used were effected. NONE! I've tried adding magnesium and seen some improvement. Epsom salt applied to the leaves seemed to slow the problem down too. Now I'm checking pH levels to see if that could be it.

THIS IS NOT A NEW PROBLEM.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
Patrick,
Respectfully, I disagree with you as both Mg and S (Epsom salt being MgSO4) deficiencies will be evident by chlorosis (yellowing of the leaves), the leaves in the photos are not chlorotic. The only mineral deficiency whose symptoms are similar is Zn and possibly Cu. Zn and Cu are micronutrients and required in relatively small amounts by the plant and as such I would be surprised if svt's soils were deficient.
 
MedicinalMan, I know that Mg isn't the only problem, there is more to it than that. I had some improvement with that. The leaves weren't yellowing at all in fact they were a darker, more condensed green if that makes any sense. I'm at a loss for the fix so far. But looking at the plants, all in close quarters, and seeing the ones in commercial soil not suffering any issues and all around them the plants in my own mix looking bad what other conclusion is reasonable?

Do you have any ideas MedicinalMan? I welcome any and all. Thanks for your comments too, they make perfect sense.

If I ever find anything out I will be posting it all over this place. This isn't the first year I've had this issue.
 
hey contour, every time this happens to me i throw a pinch of dolomite lime in there and some more soil on top of that. then after a few weeks i throw a little bonemeal in there. i was told to do this by craig dreamann of redwood city seeds. i don't know the science behind it like some of these guys do but it fixed the problem every time. i don't need to add epsom because i'm right down the street from the ocean. the saline in the air and the rain here is ridiculous.
 
Sweet, so the dolomite lime I threw into two of my plants just yesterday was maybe on the right track. I didnt want to do too many plants at once incase they got worse. When you did add the dolomite lime, did it take a long time for them to show signs or improvement or even within 2-3 weeks did you notice something?

naganumbness said:
hey contour, every time this happens to me i throw a pinch of dolomite lime in there and some more soil on top of that. then after a few weeks i throw a little bonemeal in there. i was told to do this by craig dreamann of redwood city seeds. i don't know the science behind it like some of these guys do but it fixed the problem every time. i don't need to add epsom because i'm right down the street from the ocean. the saline in the air and the rain here is ridiculous.
Click to expand...
 
svt do you use a lot of peat in your growing medium? I do. It's very acidic and I use some pelletized lime to my mix in the beginning to help offset that, gets the pH closer to where it needs to be. Maybe I need to give them a dose of that. Thanks naganumbness.

Good luck svt.
 
patrick said:
MedicinalMan, I know that Mg isn't the only problem, there is more to it than that. I had some improvement with that. The leaves weren't yellowing at all in fact they were a darker, more condensed green if that makes any sense. I'm at a loss for the fix so far. But looking at the plants, all in close quarters, and seeing the ones in commercial soil not suffering any issues and all around them the plants in my own mix looking bad what other conclusion is reasonable?

Do you have any ideas MedicinalMan? I welcome any and all. Thanks for your comments too, they make perfect sense.

If I ever find anything out I will be posting it all over this place. This isn't the first year I've had this issue.
Click to expand...

Patrick,

My affected plants also had a darker green, almost purplish, coloring to them which initially led me to believe they were suffering from a P deficiency so I treated them with some fert to no avail. One thought would be regarding your situation is, do you have the same cultivars planted in the commercial soil as in affected soil? I had over 45 different cultivars planted this year from 4 species and I observed differences in the degree of affliction. Some were very damages (Bhut, Naga Morich being the heaviest and Japs and Cayennes being the lightest. I do not dispute your conclusion, it makes sense but my own experience with what appears to be the same problem led me to a different conclusion. Another thought is that if it were a mineral deficiency would it not be completely remedied by the application of the deficient nutrient? What is in your soil mix? Is it possible that your mix is contaminated with herbicide?
 
it was kind of a slower process but i get impatient when it comes to chili matters. i wants my pods now! when i was younger i didn't give it 100% , like a lot of things in my life. now i'm older and all these new strains it's like christmas every day so i give every thing to this. carrying water jugs in 110 degree weather till i damn near puke. never missing s fert day never making excuses instead of getting my a#! out there to water. picking off every stinkbug and squashbug by hand and crunching them up.being on this website has helped a lot. seeing all the great results you guys get pushes me harder because i want those results to. i crap , i'm rambling again sorry! anyway, make sure you put some new soil on top of the dolomite lime otherwise it will form a crust on top. that a disaster. in 3 weeks if your season is still going. put a pinch of bloodmeal and a pinch of bonemeal. if you alternate these 2 steps as a regular treatment next season you should never have this problem again. also look up sprayngrow. i've played with fetilizers for years and i never get results withte others like i do with spray"n"grow. it's foliar so the results are so much faster than rootfeeding. use the 3 part system once a week and the results are amazing!
 
svtcontour said:
I didnt use a magnifying glass but would they be smaller than spider mites? I can usually see those if I look carefully. Are there smaller mite varieties? Maybe I should mist the plants 2-3 times (once week) with insecticidal soap, with the focus being the bottom of the leaves. I'll do that in the evenings because I think spraying while its sunny is a no no with those sprays.
Click to expand...

I'll be honest, I don't usually use a magnifying glass, I just assume mites or some other pest. After reading the other theories I pulled out my 12x jewelers loupe and went to check some of my leaves that looked similar. I didn't see any active bugs, but that wasn't a surprise. I did see some left over evidence. When mites feed on the leaf the leftover sap will turn brown like a rust. I found plenty of that and some droppings etc. This was from a while back. This season, I've discovered Spinosad and used it in trouble spots about 3 times. It works great, soap never really helped me and neem didn't totally solve my problems. Blasting them off with water helps, but they reproduce so quickly it's only temporary. So anyway, it might really be pH, nutes, herbicide AND I'm not pest expert, but if it was me, I blast those plants w/ water, mist w/ Spinosad and wait for new growth. The leaves that have already been hit won't recover. Just my 2.

Edit: I think there are mites that can't be seen w/o magnification. I don't know all the different types.
 
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