Numex Mirasol - Strange Growth Habit

SmokenFire · Jun 7, 2015

I am growing 2 Numex Mirasol plants this year. They have the strangest growth habit I've ever seen:

Another (same plant):

Second plant:

Anyone ever have this experience with Numex Mirasol? Is it something I did? All other pepper plants are doing fine - and these have shown this weird curly/incomplete leaf-ing since they were seedlings. Ideas?

SL3 · Jun 7, 2015

The last plants I had that looked like that were infested with spider mites. Sometimes they seek out one species leaving the other plants alone. All I know is there was no helping them at that point and they got pulled. Hopefully it is just a genetic thing for you.

Phil · Jun 7, 2015

I've had some plants look like that. I've also heard it was from spider mites, but at the time, I was under the impression I over fertilized the crap out of them. They were in rough shape for awhile, but eventually grew out of it.

suchen · Jun 7, 2015

Could also be herbicide (2,4d) damage.

SmokenFire · Jun 7, 2015

Plants have zero infestation and no herbicides or fertilizers have ever been applied. Sprouted in peat pellets, transplanted to seed starter mix in plastic cups and then were planted out in my raised beds about 2 weeks ago - same as every other pepper plant I have. They've grown odd from the start. Thanks for your thoughts - I've never seen anything like it.

Coldgrowth · Jun 7, 2015

I had similar issues with a few Brazilian starfish from Pepperlover.

Several plants in same cup, only a few showed these traits.
No signs of mites or any other pests. Had not been fertilizing. And seriously, the same variety in the same cup showed no issues. So my bet lies on bad genetics. Maybe the same is the case for you.

suchen · Jun 7, 2015

Coldgrowth that looks like classic broad mite damage. Did you inspect the leaves with a microscope? Did you lose those affected specimens?

Coldgrowth · Jun 8, 2015

No other plants were affected. And I just ended up killing the few affected plants, as I had plenty in reserve.

I did look under a microscope, I saw nothing unusual, but I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the leaf.

SichuaneseFoodFan · Jun 9, 2015

looks so much like mite damage to me