Mold?

I came home from work today to find 3 or 4 leaves on two of my Datil peppers with some form of mold I inspected both plants very carefully and did not find any insects/bugs although I believe these 2 plants may have been ones that had white fly on a few leaves 2 or 3 weeks ago which I treated at that time. I could be wrong but I believe this fungus could have been caused by honeydew left on the leaves. And from the pictures below I believe I can see some microscopic evidence of white fly. I plan to treat these two plants tomorrow morning with soapy solution and clean all the leaves.

The leaf I removed to photograph was hanging on by a thread where the fungus/mold affected it, so it practically came off into my hand. While both plants look health I’d like to take care of this issue ASAP before it spreads.

• What would you do? Any feedback will be welcome ...
• While I never saw any evidence to the fact, instead of white fly could this have been cause by mealy bugs or aphids that I never saw?

Leaf top (note the browning/black on edges of leaf and it's curling upward on edges)


Leaf bottom


Close ups

Sure looks like white fly damage, Mealy bug nesting is sporatic, although you'd spot them with the naked eye. . That also resembles a scale issue . Do you have any honey dew/fluff between the creveses of the peppers. If so that would be caused by the white flies. If it were a scale issue you'd see connecting patterns of white fluff ( salt residue appearence) on the pots, Or on the main stem and throughout the branches and nodes. The darken area's can be sooty mold . Do you have ants streaming through the branches? I agree to giving the plants a once over with a spray concoction...............

very wierd! never seen anything like that.

... its almost like a ... sticky gunk? can you describe the consistancy of it? it looks like its a buildup? not just a surface lesion.

anyway, im not familiar with the life cycle of the white fly, but i dont think they would feed on the very edges of the leaves like that, so i would rule out this being exclusively due to damage from whitefly larvas. on the other hand it could be that the leaf edges were damaged due to the damaged midrib?

from what i have read, molds/fungus tends to form what are called lesions... they usually damage plants with little local spots... sometimes the area is pimpled other times it just forms a dead necrotic spot. the fact that it looks like a "gunk" suggests it could be something else. maby bug shit, or maby something bacterial.

anyway you may want to google
"bacterial lesion midrib" or "fungal lesion midrib" something like that.
interesting stuff gentlemen, i hope you find an answer because my interest is piqued

WOW Great last Picture---Sorry about the plant but I am with PIC 1 on this---never saw that before---thanks for sharing

PIC 1 said:

Sure looks like white fly damage, Mealy bug nesting is sporatic, although you'd spot them with the naked eye.

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Agree, I still think some form of mold from white fly honeydew but threw out the mealy bug question as I’m not familiar with their after effects and I’ve not seen any. Bad call on my part to include it in my post.

PIC 1 said:

That also resembles a scale issue . Do you have any honey dew/fluff between the creveses of the peppers. If so that would be caused by the white flies. If it were a scale issue you'd see connecting patterns of white fluff ( salt residue appearence) on the pots, Or on the main stem and throughout the branches and nodes.

Click to expand...

No pods (crevasse of pepper) the plant is roughly 11 inches high, still very young. But I didn't think of scale, good call ...

PIC 1 said:

The darken area's can be sooty mold . Do you have ants streaming through the branches? I agree to giving the plants a once over with a spray concoction.

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I agree on the sooty mold and no branches yet, still one stalk. Yes I do see the occasional ant on it but not too often. I do keep an eye on ants because here they’ll plant aphid eggs on your plants very fast, that said I’ve not seen any aphids or eggs on this one. While I could not see white fly via naked eye, I believe I see some very small specs of white in the pictures, thus my theory of their honeydew which I know can cause mold untreated. I’ll try to update tomorrow with a picture of the whole plant. Over all it looks healthy but there could be other affected leaves, it was dusk when I saw it so a perfect inspection was difficult. Thank you for your input, much appreciated

queequeg152 said:

very wierd! never seen anything like that.... its almost like a ... sticky gunk? can you describe the consistancy of it? it looks like its a buildup? not just a surface lesion. …

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Correct it’s sticky gunk, honeydew but the build up I believe is some form of mold.

queequeg152 said:

anyway, im not familiar with the life cycle of the white fly, but i dont think they would feed on the very edges of the leaves like that, so i would rule out this being exclusively due to damage from whitefly larvas. on the other hand it could be that the leaf edges were damaged due to the damaged midrib?

Click to expand...

I always catch white fly early so I don’t know how they eat but believe they suck the sap out of leaves and leave behind a honeydew which normally comes off when sprayed with soapy water, but maybe some of it got all built up in the rib which later caused the mold. I’m not sure what the dark around the leaf edges is but it could be caused by the mold spreading or as Greg said possible scale, I'm just sure yet.

queequeg152 said:

from what i have read, molds/fungus tends to form what are called lesions... they usually damage plants with little local spots... sometimes the area is pimpled other times it just forms a dead necrotic spot. the fact that it looks like a "gunk" suggests it could be something else. maby bug shit, or maby something bacterial.

anyway you may want to google
"bacterial lesion midrib" or "fungal lesion midrib" something like that.
interesting stuff gentlemen, i hope you find an answer because my interest is piqued

Click to expand...

Thanks for feedback and yes I’ve been google’ing ...

Balac said:

WOW Great last Picture---Sorry about the plant but I am with PIC 1 on this---never saw that before---thanks for sharing

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Thanks for the pic feedback and yea I think he’s confirmed some of my belief plus adding valuable feedback.

that ain't white flies, hit em with some H202 treatment.

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000002422 StartFragment:0000000552 EndFragment:0000002405
To spray on sick or fungusy plants:

TO THIS AMOUNT OF WATER
ADD THIS AMOUNT OF 3% HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
--OR-- ADD THIS AMOUNT OF 35% HYDROGEN PEROXIDE
1 cup water
1 tablespoon 3% H202
1/4 teaspoon 35% H202

1 pint
2 tablespoons
1/2 teaspoon

1 quart
1/4 cup
1 teaspoon

1 gallon
1 cup
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon

5 gallons
5 cups
6 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons

10gallons
10 cups
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoons

20 gallons
20 cups
1 and 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons


Please be mindful to choose the correct column in the chart depending on whether you are using 3% hydrogen peroxide or 35% hydrogen peroxide!!

Prehensile is right about using a 3% hydrogen peroxide wash /spray mix which I use on my overwintering plants, besides killing mold or mildew it removes the protective coating on soft bodied insects. It will remove any soap build up that you might have and prevent any mold or mildew from coming back if you use it on a regular basis, and will allow new growth to replace old damaged growth.

Prehensile said:

that ain't white flies, hit em with some H202 treatment. ...

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If it is not a form of fungus/mold caused by white fly honeydew then what is it? I will try the treatment as it sounds like it can work to kill fungus and will follow up with results over time but would like to know your assessment of cause issue, thanks!

WalkGood said:

If it is not a form of fungus/mold caused by white fly honeydew then what is it? I will try the treatment as it sounds like it can work to kill fungus and will follow up with results over time but would like to know your assessment of cause issue, thanks!

Click to expand...

I treat my plants every 14-21 days during the winter H202 mix and Epsom Salt, during our wet season I treat em once every 7-14 days(sometimes H202 only, every 3-5 days when Bacterial Leaf Spot is going round), Check other plants around your area see if they show the same problem. I had wild grapes with leaf spot, it jumped to my plants last your so.....BY BY GRAPES!!!!

Prehensile said:

I treat my plants every 14-21 days during the winter H202 mix and Epsom Salt, during our wet season I treat em once every 7-14 days(sometimes H202 only, every 3-5 days when Bacterial Leaf Spot is going round), Check other plants around your area see if they show the same problem. I had wild grapes with leaf spot, it jumped to my plants last your so.....BY BY GRAPES!!!!

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No other plants in the area have the same thing, only on 3 Datil peppers. Not sure it’s leaf spot but think it could be something bacterial or some type of fungus/mold started from honeydew. Possibly honeydew trapped moister under it causing damage by starting fungus, I’m still not sure what it is but went ahead and treated with your suggestion H202 mix. I’ve always sprayed plants with Epsom Salt but only once a month in past. I’ll spray the H202 mix again in 3 days and keep treatment up to see if it cures it. Thanks for the suggestion and I'll post back any outcomes ...

Took some more pics, the plant is just over 7” high.