Cayennes rotting on the plant, HELP!

Backyard_Pepper_Grower

Backyard_Pepper_Grower

I need some help! I’m growing cayenne peppers (labeled as the “long slim” variety) in pots and some of them are starting to go bad on the plant! I live in Michigan (Detroit area) and we had a very unusually wet and cool spring followed by a hot dry summer. I waited out the wet stuff to plant, so I don’t think over-watering is an issue. My own experience has been that larger chilies don’t do as well in pots, but I’ve been very successful growing habaneros, Scotch bonnets, Tabascos, and Thai dragons in pots. I’ve grown cayenne chilies before, but it’s been about 3 seasons since the last time I planted them, and I can’t remember if I grew them in pots or the ground. Again, I’ve been careful not to over-water. If anything, I might be under watering as the leaves are a little droopy on the potted peppers when I get home at the end of the day, especially on the hotter days. It seems that a lot of the peppers are first getting rotten spots near the tips and then the stems weaken to the point where slightly touching the pepper causes it to fall off. In the past I’ve only had peppers go bad twice: the time I tried a bell pepper plant (in the ground) and last year when I tried cherry bombs (pimento) in pots. I never really isolated the cause of why the cherry bombs were going bad on the plant, but my best guess what that the pot environment provided insufficient nutrients for the pepper to mature before succumbing to parasites, microbial or otherwise.

The peppers look great, but they’re green and apparently have a tendency to rot before they redden, which is what happened with the cherry bombs last summer. I’ve been fairly meticulous about pruning all of my plants this summer, so while the rotting ones tend to be on lower branches, none of them are touching the soil. Thanks in advanced for any advice!


P.S. I tried to enclose a picture of some of the bad peppers, but for some reason the site won't let me use a flickr link, so until I figure that out, I guess everyone will have to use their imaginations!
 
Could be BER (blossom end rot) - that causes the pod to ripen faster than normal and fall off. Over watering is usually the cause, but sometimes it just happens. Check your plants in the morning to see how "happy" they are regarding water, even well watered plants can get droopy in the late afternoon heat. Usually it works itself out so don't do anything crazy like adding some special nutrient. Patience will be rewarded in most cases.
 
BER is also caused by lack of calcium. check your fertilizer to see if it contains micro nutes. If it does not then you might want to invest in a calcium supplent(bone meal will take too long to break down at this point to do any good) you will need a liquid supplement. i did not add Lime to my soil when i mixed it. so i made a brew of Garden lime and mixed with vinegar i put it in a cottage cheese container about 1/2cup and fill the rest with vinegar(it will react and fizz so do not put the lid on it till it stops) but all i do is every time i feed i add 1tbsp of the liquid with my ferts and feed. so far no BER and last year had it bad and this cured the problem for the rest of the season. from the guy that told me about this brew is that it contains both Mg and Ca so no need to add epsom salts either.

Eric
 
Thanks for the tip guys!

My plants do tend to look happier in the morning, so there is the possibility that I've been over-watering, however the amount of water that I've been using isn't totally inconsistent with what I've used in past seasons on my potted chillies. I've haven't been fertilizing regularly or often, and the stuff I've been using this season has no calcium. Under most circumstances I'd be inclined to be more conservative and take BigT's advice and wait it out, however I have noticed some warped leaves on most if not all of my potted chilies as well as the chilies in my ground garden.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is the BER and warped leaves together proof positive (or a close certainty) of a calcium deficiency? I know over-watering can cause leaves to curl, but my plants have irreversibly warped leaves like the leaves in the video that Redtail posted. I started all of my plants, potted and in-ground, with nitrogen only fertilizers and switched to a 5-50-17 N-P-K formula when blooms started appearing, but like I said there's no calcium and I'm not sure about other micro-nutrients. I use a great deal of organic matter in the ground garden and in my potting soil mixture and I try to minimize the use of fertilizers, but I'm ready to embrace better gardening through science if it will protect my crops and give me healthier plants throughout the season. Thanks again for the advice so far!
 
Backyard_Pepper_Grower said:
Thanks for the tip guys!

My plants do tend to look happier in the morning, so there is the possibility that I've been over-watering, however the amount of water that I've been using isn't totally inconsistent with what I've used in past seasons on my potted chillies. I've haven't been fertilizing regularly or often, and the stuff I've been using this season has no calcium. Under most circumstances I'd be inclined to be more conservative and take BigT's advice and wait it out, however I have noticed some warped leaves on most if not all of my potted chilies as well as the chilies in my ground garden.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is the BER and warped leaves together proof positive (or a close certainty) of a calcium deficiency? I know over-watering can cause leaves to curl, but my plants have irreversibly warped leaves like the leaves in the video that Redtail posted. I started all of my plants, potted and in-ground, with nitrogen only fertilizers and switched to a 5-50-17 N-P-K formula when blooms started appearing, but like I said there's no calcium and I'm not sure about other micro-nutrients. I use a great deal of organic matter in the ground garden and in my potting soil mixture and I try to minimize the use of fertilizers, but I'm ready to embrace better gardening through science if it will protect my crops and give me healthier plants throughout the season. Thanks again for the advice so far!
Click to expand...

"I use a great deal of organic matter in the ground garden and in my potting soil mixture and I try to minimize the use of fertilizers"

I think you can safely eliminate all fertilizers for the rest of this year. Just be more careful watering, give those babies a little more shade and I'm betting they'll pull through just fine.
 
If fertilizer/soil nutrients aren't an issue, any thoughts on the cause of the leaf warping? Some are worse than others, but none of the warped leafs have reverted to a natural posture and the worse-off leafs are seriously contorted...
 
post up a picture of the leaves you are talking about so the experts here can better assist you on solving your issue.

Eric
 
Mine do the same thing. About the time they begin to turn red they will develop lesions and begin to rot. They rot in different spots too. Its happened the last two years. In fact, yesterday was the first time I've picked two healthy cayennes. It is quite annoying.
 
This is one of the peppers with the rot...

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Eric,

Sorry for the delay... I've been having a hard time trying to insert pictures. I followed the directions on the "Help" page but the best I seem to be able to do is insert hyperlinks to my old Flickr page, where I've been putting the pictures. Anyway, these are the warped leaves I've been talking about, both in vivo and in my kitchen. Hope you can get an idea. Thanks!

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