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White fly damage?

OrlandoPeppers

OrlandoPeppers

I don't have a huge white fly infestation, I only have a couple that I have to kill every day or two, it seems like its never really more than 3.  I treat with neem oil once a week and despite all my efforts I woke up this morning to find this damage to my 2 month old pod.  Is it from the white flys?  Is it true that now if I harvest seeds from this pepper that the plant will be diseased?
 
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That looks more like a little sun scald than insect damage to me. And even if it were caused by insects, the seeds would probably still be OK. As long as the seeds are not black and/or moldy looking when you cut the pod open, they are usually fine. Just make sure to let the pod fully ripen before you harvest it for seeds. You will have better germination rates that way.
 
That is absolutely sunscald. Whiteflies make the leaves fall off. Like completely off. The fruit won't be there, because without the foliage, they won't grow properly, and they'll be exposed to the sun, which means they'll fail to set, or ripen way prematurely. Your pod is 2 months old, because we just got over a couple of weeks of solid rain, and before that, the temps were slightly cooler.

I'm having a similar issue right now. All of my plants stayed wet for over a week. All of my leaves on a couple of plants started falling off. It was a red fatalii that had close to a hundred pods on it. 70% of the leaves have now dropped, and all of the pods ripened almost instantly. About a dozen have scald spots like the one in your picture.

It will bounce back, but it's a pain in the ass.

The best defense against whitefly, by the way, is a healthy plant. Keep everything in check, and they shouldn't bother you too badly. I just turned 5000 lacewing larva loose in my garden, as those are the worst enemy of just about every known pepper pest. That being said, it looks like daytime, and your plants have water on the leaves. Is that after a rain, or are you watering during the non-watering hours?
 
Thanks for all the info! The wetness in the picture is due to the weekly spray of neem oil. I usually water every other day in the morning around 6 am, or around 7pm, but sometimes on the weekends I wake up a little later and do water around 9am. They are in a shady part of my front porch but get the most direct sun as it sets. This is the plant that I got out of my "Magic Plant" can of "Butch T's", although they are clearly not as advertised. Still excited about these pods though. This plant currently has 6 pods that look like this and two more are growing out of flowers now. Hoping to see some color change in the next month.
 
Whitefly infestation will also lead to fungal issues as well.

If left unchecked the whitefly sucking and chewing promotes fungal issues that look Luke a black soot at the base of the plant that eventually will creep up the plant.
 
That is not whit fly damage. I had a huge whitey epidemic this winter and kept it under control with fly tape. Indoor issues are far more serious than outdoor ones as your corrective measures are limited.
 
moruga welder said:
plants to big for whiteflies to hurt ,   how much water they getting ?  humidity ?
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That's not true at all. Whitefly can destroy adult coconut palm trees. Any pepper, of any size, is a small job for a whitefly horde.
 
solid7 said:
That's not true at all. Whitefly can destroy adult coconut palm trees. Any pepper, of any size, is a small job for a whitefly horde.
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i had them in the greenhouse with older pepper plants , never hurt the plants , but again i never had a horde of them .
 
moruga welder said:
i had them in the greenhouse with older pepper plants , never hurt the plants , but again i never had a horde of them .
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I live in the land of the whitefly. We have about 50 different species of them, in fact, and no one treatment takes care of them all.

OP is here in my neighborhood. He is right to be worried. But luckily, not whitefly, this time.
 
i see , its a different species , than what we have up here , the ones up here have never hurt older plants , even my younger ones , more of a pest than  anything 
 
I'm leaning water/nute reasons, I have white flies on my Olive tree out front and it is a huge infestation. They migrate to my peppers all the time and I also got the same result as you, but after adjusting my watering times and levels, the problem seems to be gone. Even though the rot started in the center of my pods, I found them to be a case of or at least similar to blossom end rot. With the new feeding and watering schedule, the whiteflies are still around, but the rot spots aren't.

This is just my experience with a similar looking spot on pods.
 
 
In my case - too much water and too much nutes.
 
 
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So, I have to reiterate - whether it was a sucking bug (which wasn't a whitefly) that caused an injury, or not - that is a classic, textbook case of sunscald.

OP, if you want to limit this, until the plant is super full, find an area to put the plant in, that gets sun until about 11:00 AM, and then becomes shady. (North side)

I find that most of my peppers love the heat way more than they love the blazing Florida sun.
 
solid7 said:
So, I have to reiterate - whether it was a sucking bug (which wasn't a whitefly) that caused an injury, or not - that is a classic, textbook case of sunscald.

OP, if you want to limit this, until the plant is super full, find an area to put the plant in, that gets sun until about 11:00 AM, and then becomes shady. (North side)

I find that most of my peppers love the heat way more than they love the blazing Florida sun.
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Pretty good advice. I have my Reaper adolescents growing on my shady patio and they are thriving there. I might put these plants back there too and see how they do. They are definitely sensitive to all the strong rays we get.
 
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