2019 Hay Bale Pepper Patch

I've been a member for a while but never posted a grow log. My usual garden is too boring for that. I use 20-30 pots and overwinter my mama plants in a hillbilly winter shelter. Our ground here isn't good for in soil gardening and I've not been enthused enough to undertake the work and expense to build raised beds.
 
Now I have my peppers working the way I want and have the need for a much larger grow to supply a project. The main peppers I'll grow will be reaper, douglah and fatalii. For a couple of years I'll do hay bale gardens and heap tons of organic trash into the area. I have monumental amounts of pine straw, oak leaves and bonfire ash every year to dump in the walkways. I think this will do a world of good to make this new garden area mo'betta for eventual in ground growing.
 
I closed off a 38x38 patch in the NE field that gets full sun. This is the area I chose. The big painted guy is my fertilizer supplier.
 
The little painted guy is my running buddy and load inspector.
 
 

 

[DWB]

My biggest fear has come to pass. Well, maybe. Maybe it's better, maybe not. I've always been afraid of the wilt in our land and that's why I've grown only in pots since 2001. I always felt like it was fusarium but never knew. I thought I may get away with it now by growing in an area that's never grown a thing but grass in well over 30 years... plus, growing in the bales.
 
Lately I've had 3 peppers and a tomato decline rapidly. I dug up the huge mater plant and the three pepper plants and hauled them into the new Auburn Plant Diagnostic Lab yesterday to find out exactly what's going on. The peppers looked like fusarium to me but the mater looked like herbicide damage with no corresponding evidence of fungal wilt. Testing revealed the peppers are going down with Pythium. Not sure if that's better or worse than fusarium but I'm happier with that diagnosis and definitely happy it's definitely not Phytophthora.
 
The director of the lab said the tomato had herbicide damage. It looks like my neighbor nuked me again. I'm waiting to hear back from the state ag dept inspector to discuss how this possibly could have happened when the spraying was downwind and the wind didn't shift for a few hours. Unless Valor and Dual Magnum are even more volatile than the 2,4-D types, this is gonna be a real head scratcher. This happened Tuesday before last and the only damage I'm seeing so far are on the SE two row enders that are basically sentinel plants that are 75 yards into my property with a 30' buffer on the other side of the fence.
 
I ordered in a package of Mycostop on Tuesday and it arrived today. I'll do a soil spray treatment tomorrow just before our regularly scheduled weekend squall line comes rolling though. The rain will wash it into the root zone. If no rain, I just have to water with a quarter-inch within 6 hours odf spraying.
 
In other news, Cody turned four years old on Wednesday and I promoted him to full-fledged service dog status. He's more than adequately trained and fully qualified at this point. I started his training when he was a baby and I carried him into the stores in a duffel bag  We celebrated his promotion today with a big ol' $220 shopping trip to Sam's after a quick stop at the accountants's office. Sam's was slammed just like any other Friday afternoon and Cody was perfect. I'm so proud of this boy I could 'spode.
 
He had a great time and was very proud of himself but he still prefers prowling the Alabama savannah with big sis Lia.
 

 

[CaneDog]

Sounds like a bit of a mixed bag DWB.  Hopefully you can suppress the Pythium, because it's a moral imperative that your hay bale pepper patch comes to full fruition. 
 
Big congrats to Cody on his birthday and milestone! 

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

Thats wild bro, we have similar problems here with that craziness. Mychorrizae fungi can help stave off pythium from what I read, wishing you the best and congrats to Cody

 

[nmlarson]

Happy Birthday, Cody!   
 
WOW!  I hope you pull through all these issues.  Every single one of my tomato starts were hit by drift last year.  I didn't pick a single fruit and was the first time in recent memory I had to buy tomatoes.

 

[DWB]

Thanks y'all. Sorry to hear you lost all of your maters last year Nan. Was that in the community garden?
 
I treated my plants today. The label says use 1-2 grams per 100 ft² for soil spray or drench. All I cared about at this time was inoculating the plants so I sprayed 2 grams on 140 plants. I hit the lower stem and the area over the root ball. I was afraid to wait for the rain that may not come so I watered enough to move the stuff into the root zone. With that done, I'm not hoping for rain. A part of the problem around here has to be wet feet. My composted growing media just don't dry out very well. Even so, everything in the main garden (except for the tomato I dug up to take to the lab and stuck back in the ground a day later) is still looking fantastic and very healthy. All the up close and personal to get under the plants to find the main stems and dial in on the root zone for spraying revealed a ton of pods and baby maters. I even found a few ripe pods.
 
I've now lost three more pepper plants the same way but here's the thing. They were planted in the new bales that have nothing in common with the composted bales or our soil but the disease looks similar but the progression is much faster. I'll autopsy them soon and see if they look the same as the Pythium plants. Although the peppers I took to the lab tested negative for Phytophthora, they really didn't test positive for Pythium. No test for that so that diagnosis of Pythium was deductive and process of elimination by the lab director. Could be there isn't some pathological fungi after my plants and it's dumb luck or wet feet or planting the peppers too deep and runty plants in general. Indeed, all of the deaders are runty except for a fatalli that had flowers and baby pods. It hurt to lose that one.
 
Regardless, whether required for survival or not, the mycostop treatment is a good thing and can only help the roots. I'll do another treatment soon and if my peppers continue to grow faster than the weeds, I'm also gonna spray on a quarter-acres worth of other beneficial bacteria and fungi for a dirt cheap price. It will work well with the Mycostop. If I lose more plants to a wilt, I guess I'll have to go with the big gun, Ridomil Gold SL chemical fungicide. That will kill the good and the bad. Expensive too. Shame you can't buy a tiny amount enough to do a tiny patch.

 

[Devv]

Sorry to hear about your issues, and I hope things do turn around.
 
3 cheers for Cody!
 
I have 3 dogs, 2 Blue Lacy's (sisters), that just turned 4, and an old Rat Terrier, approaching 9. We had a nice rain with lots of lightning last night, I let them in, because they get scared. Funny they will fearlessly attack anything that comes in the yard but can't handle the thunder.
 
Once again, good luck with your plants!

 

[BigCedar]

Hey DW! Wow I'm happy I came across your glog! Been reading through in between chores all day, all caught up! Man.. What a transformation you got going on! Your property is gorgeous, if you don't mind me asking how much land are you sitting on? I learned alot Alabama today    I think one of the best parts of the glogs is just learning about what everyone has to deal with and go through all around the US and World to make this hobby happen. Had no idea you had to cover plants with shade cloth from start to finish, that is mind boggling to me. Your dogs are great! You can tell they're your best buddies. Your grow rooms were awesome, and man... I wanna see more of those OWs! You got some trees in there! Ok so I am a little upset I tuned in right as shits starting to go south for some of your plants... If you could explain a bit further because I've never heard of any of this that would be greatly appreciated... Wilt? I read up on Pythium but not too much, so wet soil, previous crops, previous horse pastures... How long does it live in soil? Is it easily treated? What's the over under on your plants surviving and or the entire plot being affected?  Rather than spending an hour researching I figured you would be the the guy to ask. Also how close is your neighbor? Herbicidal damage?    Maybe I'm overreacting but that sounds crazy to me! Not only that but how the hell is that shit legal if it travels that far and can do damage like that? At the same time who am I kidding, if you can still buy round-up at lowes this kinda shit shouldn't surprise me. I'll be watching closely, keep us all posted please! I wish you the best of luck with the whole situation, after all that work those plants can't go out like that!   

 

[nmlarson]

Thanks y'all. Sorry to hear you lost all of your maters last year Nan. Was that in the community garden?

Nope! The starts were on my deck here at home hardening off. It's a long story, but it was definitely drift that got 'em.

I used to wonder if some sort of sacrificial buffer zone couldn't be planted to take the majority of the hit. Until it hit my toms on a deck that is 12' above ground level.

 

[DWB]

Hey DW! Wow I'm happy I came across your glog! Been reading through in between chores all day, all caught up! Man.. What a transformation you got going on! Your property is gorgeous, if you don't mind me asking how much land are you sitting on? I learned alot Alabama today    I think one of the best parts of the glogs is just learning about what everyone has to deal with and go through all around the US and World to make this hobby happen. Had no idea you had to cover plants with shade cloth from start to finish, that is mind boggling to me. Your dogs are great! You can tell they're your best buddies. Your grow rooms were awesome, and man... I wanna see more of those OWs! You got some trees in there! Ok so I am a little upset I tuned in right as shits starting to go south for some of your plants... If you could explain a bit further because I've never heard of any of this that would be greatly appreciated... Wilt? I read up on Pythium but not too much, so wet soil, previous crops, previous horse pastures... How long does it live in soil? Is it easily treated? What's the over under on your plants surviving and or the entire plot being affected?  Rather than spending an hour researching I figured you would be the the guy to ask. Also how close is your neighbor? Herbicidal damage?    Maybe I'm overreacting but that sounds crazy to me! Not only that but how the hell is that shit legal if it travels that far and can do damage like that? At the same time who am I kidding, if you can still buy round-up at lowes this kinda shit shouldn't surprise me. I'll be watching closely, keep us all posted please! I wish you the best of luck with the whole situation, after all that work those plants can't go out like that!   

 

Hi Brandon. We have 7 acres here which is surrounded behind and to the sides several sections of land with little to nothing on it. Across the road for many miles each way is the Forever Wild/Perdido River Wildlife Management Area. Nice and quiet out here in the sticks.
 
The dogs are our kids. We think they're exceptional and we're blessed to have them in our lives. Cody is my shadow and watches over me constantly. Lia is my heart. When Lia was young my wife used to say her breed is a "Daddy's Girl" but now that she's older she's a "Mommy's Girl".
 
The pythium seems to be somewhat an enigma. It's everywhere and it's nowhere. It's dangerous and it's docile. It will kill anything yet it lives in harmony with all of it. Kinda reminds me of a vet who paints a grim picture about giardia but what he really means to say is the puppy has the shits. I don't know man, I'm just learning. Wetness may define a thin line between disaster and doing well. I haven't read anything about horses causing a pythium problem but we've had horses on this land for 20 years and I'm dumping a metric shit ton of manure to compost with oak leaves in the aisles of my garden space. The only thing ever grown on this little patch is grass and a few old pines knocked down by 'cane Ivan in 2004 so it's got nothing to do with crop rotation.
 
I think the prognosis is good but I could be delusional. All I can do is try to stay one step ahead and hope we don't have 100" of rain again this year. I think I may go ahead and lay down the black plastic sheeting between the rows to cook the land and although I've wanted to go no till on this, I'm beginning to think that may be a very good idea to stir it all up good when winter comes again. Thank you for the good wishes. I appreciate it. And thanks for being interested and reading though the accounting of my project..
 
I have most of the OW plants repotted now and planted a few in the garden. I still have a few more to pot up but they're all waking up nicely from their winter nap. I'll round them up and take a picture soon.
 
The "neighbor" is an industrial farmer who leases the 80 acres behind us. Yeah, herbicides can be bad and hard to keep under control. The farmer is a great guy who's becoming more conscientious the more he learns about my requirements. He's only been out here in our part of the county for a few years but he farms thousands of acres all over the county. Herbicides are a special problem when the 500 acres he's looking at starting today should have been completed last week. Time is of the essence and that's bad with a sprayer that has a 140" swath, no telemetry and knucklehead operator being paid by the acre.

 

[DWB]

Nope! The starts were on my deck here at home hardening off. It's a long story, but it was definitely drift that got 'em.

I used to wonder if some sort of sacrificial buffer zone couldn't be planted to take the majority of the hit. Until it hit my toms on a deck that is 12' above ground level.

 
Was it a 2,4-D or Dicamba type of herbicide? My plants were hosed by 2'4-DB vapor in 2017. The closest the sprayer came to some of my plants was maybe 50 yards away.
 
The other side of the fence buffer here is increased to around 45' as of this year and we're gonna let it go to jungle. Still, it's a bit disconcerting to learn your plants got hosed so high up in the air. Was there a weird temperature inversion going on at the time?
 
Edit: the buffer is 60' now. He added 45' to the original 15' after his guy hosed my property with roundup March 7. Spraying in a 20 mph wind

 

[nmlarson]

Hmmm.....temperature inversion?  I really don't know.  However, most of our summertime weather comes from the west, our long driveway is oriented NE-SW and has about a 20° incline.  It's entirely possibly the breezes coming up the drive were responsible for carrying the vapors up to the deck, which overhangs the ground floor entrance to the basement garage.
 
Here's where my story begins.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1560484
 
And where I thought it was going to end.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1563552
 
And yes, it was 2,4-D and Dicamba.
 
Fast forward to find out who the real culprit was.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1564371

 

[DWB]

Hmmm.....temperature inversion?  I really don't know.  However, most of our summertime weather comes from the west, our long driveway is oriented NE-SW and has about a 20° incline.  It's entirely possibly the breezes coming up the drive were responsible for carrying the vapors up to the deck, which overhangs the ground floor entrance to the basement garage.
 
Here's where my story begins.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1560484
 
And where I thought it was going to end.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1563552
 
And yes, it was 2,4-D and Dicamba.
 
Fast forward to find out who the real culprit was.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/68324-2018-nmlarson-community-garden-glog/page-2#entry1564371

 
Oh jeez. Somebody got in some trouble. I think these volatile auxins can go up or down anywhere the pressure is lower when they vaporize. I'm glad you figured it out but I feel sorry for your husband when you did. Your neighbor sounds like a real piece of work.
 
While on the subject of self-inflicted wounds, I think my stupidly or inadvertently piling semi composted hay up around the stems of pepper plants as mulch may have a lot to do with the failures. They ain't tomatoes. I went through all the plants again this morning and found several in this condition. Most are okay but I found one douglah that is in less than stellar condition.
 
So that and the excess moisture and some of the pythium attacking runty plants that were most recently planted may explain a lot. The garden must have a lot of excess moisture when I'm finding large mushroom clusters like this growing among the peppers.
 

 

[nmlarson]

 
Oh jeez. Somebody got in some trouble. I think these volatile auxins can go up or down anywhere the pressure is lower when they vaporize. I'm glad you figured it out but I feel sorry for your husband when you did. Your neighbor sounds like a real piece of work.
 
While on the subject of self-inflicted wounds, I think my stupidly or inadvertently piling semi composted hay up around the stems of pepper plants as mulch may have a lot to do with the failures. They ain't tomatoes. I went through all the plants again this morning and found several in this condition. Most are okay but I found one douglah that is in less than stellar condition.
 
So that and the excess moisture and some of the pythium attacking runty plants that were most recently planted may explain a lot. The garden must have a lot of excess moisture when I'm finding large mushroom clusters like this growing among the peppers.
 

 
Youza!  That must be pretty wet.  Yep, I'd pull that mulch back at least a couple of inches.  Tomatoes are always looking for a spa day, all damp and steamy.  Peppers wanna be sunning themselves on the beach!
 
As for my husband, I believe he's learning.  And, last week, actually requested a consult on what weed killer he should buy.     Having recently sunk a handsome amount of money into the front landscaping, he's thinking twice before he starts spraying.
 
 
Good luck with those peppers.  Maybe they'll recover when they get a chance to take a deep breath.
 
 
 

 

[DWB]

After inoculating all the in-ground peppers Saturday morning, they all seem to be doing well but the one douglah. It may be determined to die. I'm giving it deep shade to take a load off. Hopefully only three deaders there but I have several alternative treatmens on the way in case things start going south again.
 
The ones in the bales, not so much. It looks like I'm gonna lose at least 6  but it may be a different disease. These bales have nothing in common with the others and nothing in common with our ground but here's what these are looking like. A lot of roots are dead and gone but unlike pythium, the root sheaths aren't sloughing off and the roots that are left don't look all black and nasty. This seed was germinated in a peat pellet.
 

 

[nmlarson]

That stem looks odd.  I'm wondering how much of it was underground and how the "soil" tested prior to planting?
 
[EDIT]:  Slice that stem open at the transition point of the black to green.  What do you see?

 

[DWB]

The plant is the one under the red arrow. As of Apr 28. Sunday before last.
 

 
It had some loose hay around the lower inch of stem above the peat pellet. The next inch is the necrotic part. Dead as a hammer. Everything else you see in those bales is doing well.
 
I don't have any pictures of the 3 in-ground deaders diagnosed with pythium. They stayed at the lab but this is what pythium root and crown rot looks like.
 
http://blogs.cornell.edu/livegpath/gallery/peppers/pythium-crown-and-root-rot-of-pepper/
 
Pretty much the way this plant looks except the roots are not affected the same. Another disease. Really peachy.

 

[nmlarson]

The plant is the one under the red arrow. As of Apr 28. Sunday before last.
 

 
It had some loose hay around the lower inch of stem above the peat pellet. The next inch is the necrotic part. Dead as a hammer. Everything else you see in those bales is doing well.
 
I don't have any pictures of the 3 in-ground deaders diagnosed with pythium. They stayed at the lab but this is what pythium root and crown rot looks like.
 
http://blogs.cornell.edu/livegpath/gallery/peppers/pythium-crown-and-root-rot-of-pepper/
 
Pretty much the way this plant looks except the roots are not affected the same. Another disease. Really peachy.

 
Boy, that sucks big air.  Can you dispose of those bales and isolate them, and their footprints, somehow?

 

[DWB]

I can haul them to the burnpile but that's a lot of work and I'm not all that bent about it yet.
 
The 10 bales in the two different places make over 50' of row and I still have 19 healthy plants in there. I've planted the blank spaces with Landreth's stringless bush beans and I've started germinating more in the sock pots so I'll have those ready to go when I have to unplug more peppers.
 
I can use all the green beans I can grow. My girldog Lia eats 100 grams a day in her meals. Helps her keep that girlish figure at over 9 years old. That factors out to a fuzz over 80 lbs. a year. I have two bigass Nesco dehydrators so I can handle a lot of them there green beans. They de/re-hydrate very nicely.

 

[DWB]

Everything is nice and stable in the pepper patch. The douglah I fear would be the next one to go down is hanging tough although still in the shade.
 
I did a treatment with the systemic fungicide Phosphorus Acid today before the rains come again. It's good for pythium and phytopthora root rots. I used 20 ml per gallon. I coated everything on all sides and in the middle with 2 gallons of the foliar spray.
 
My weekly reference shot of the bush babies show a nice amount of growth since last week. Not affected so far.
 

 
Bean ditch and tomato road aren't showing any pythium problems either.
 

 

[stettoman]

Sorry for your troubles, DW. Myself, I'm only bordering square miles of farmland on four sides, every one of them big corporate operations (they call themselves "family farms" but when you farm tens of thousands of acres and are subsidized to your nipples, you are corporate), and every one of them spray the herbicide and the insecticide and the salt mist (to kill the wheat and soybeans) every Spring, summer and fall, and I sweat every day I see a Cessna 188 swooping upwind of me...Thankfully my neighbors are, for the most part, pretty darn conscientious, working calm days or at least spaying killers downwind. They've killed a couple of boxelders on the property line, but in 10 years I have yet to lose any garden residents, at least to airborne herbicides...
 
Tribulations aside, I admire your operation.