plant-care Dreamcatcher x Thunder Mountain Longhorn new growth dried up and died...confirm my suspicion on cause please

[Harmonic_Heat]

Probably much ado about nothing. I feel kinda sheepish asking given what I think the cause is lol

All of my plants have been doing pretty well, overwatering aside (weirdly rainy/cloudy/humid summer here in Denver), up until the last couple of days when I noticed one of my two DxTML plants had a problem with its latest growth. The foliage on the tips shriveled up, dried out, and died along with the flowers. It seems that pods that were already set are not affected, yet. The other plant is fine so far but is showing different variegation in the foliage and the pods but I don't think that's related.

This plant was on the end of my pepper row on my deck semi-protected from wind by the wood railing but would still get the brunt of the wind (averaging 10-15 mph daily this summer and have had near daily microbursts due to passing storms bringing wind gusts from 25-70 MPH, usually 25-35) so I moved it further "in" where my house blocks more of the gusts. The other plants on the end it was on are fine including a 7 Pot Bubblegum that is producing pods.

Same feeding regimen, same sun exposure, same everything except it's in a 10g container and my other one that's fine is in a 5g bucket.

I'm wondering (and assuming but second opinions/confirmation are always welcome) if it's related to the widespread wilting that occurred 7-10 days ago or so after I stopped watering due to over-watering causing edema. Figured I'd let em wilt a bit to tell me they're thirsty and then water but a couple plants, namely my Aribibi Gusanos and Biquonho "yellows" didn't like that too much and dropped some leaves and flower but have since recovered and perfectly happy. I possibly didn't notice the tips on this plant being as affected as I have been busy comparing its pods to the other one's (same variant, different variegation occurring).

The leaves did feel a bit dry and noticed the soil was maybe pretty dry too so I watered it soon as I noticed but that was only 2 days ago so can't quite tell if it's having any effect. Leaves in general are happier feeling anyway. It's also near 100 yesterday, today, and tomorrow which isn't helping.



The more I think about it the more I am leaning towards damage from under-watering but I'm no expert and looking for confirmation. Difficult to get my phone camera to focus at the right depth plus sun glare on the screen. Just want to be sure it's nothing that'll spread to my other plants or the rest of this plant and I should lop branches asap. Thanks!

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Nm, I'm pretty sure it just got a little crispy.

 

[HerbCasa]

They got affected by the heat

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Thanks Herb, definitely crispied, it's showing new growth on most of those tips

 

[CaneDog]

I was doing deck work and had to bring some of the pepper plants inside for several days. I left them behind the curtain in a sunny south window and kind of forgot about them for several days as things got busy. When I checked on them several of the plants had dried out and were pretty wilted. One of them, a trep werner/baccatum, wasn't wilted at all, but almost all of its growth tips were dead and dried like yours.

It couldn't have been the sun as it was behind the window, but I bet it got hot between the window and the curtain where it was and the soil definitely dried out. The odd thing is all the others wilted but had no lasting damage. The baccatum didn't wilt, but the growth tips were brown and dead and I had to cut them back to let them grow again laterally.

So my take is that it wasn't sun intensity, but heat and/or dehydration. My question is - why did this plant respond so differently to the others?

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

That's an interesting observation. I was wondering if it had to do with the affected tips being more heavily variegated/genetically sensitive to sunlight but I can rule that out based on your trep werner (had to look it up). How old is the window it was behind? I know they can lose their UV protection over time especially if 10-15+ years old. The heat trap theory sounds probable buuuut...

...if it's heat and this particular plant is sensitive to it then I'll probably be looking at new damage middle of next week again. Or I move that one closer to the house so it gets shade sooner but not sure how much that'll help with ambient temps and stored heat in the wood on the deck. Experiment or be cautious Adult decisions, yay

A couple of the tips aren't seeing new growth yet. Sounds like I should trim them back a little.

Interestingly after these tips burned off the other branches elongated considerably. It looks a bit different than the other one now which has retained a "normal" shape with no bits sticking out very far from the others. The one with the burnt tips looks a bit sparse with the new growth. I'll have to wait and see if it fills in or what. I'll get pics tomorrow.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Hmmm, the other one did branch out too but was not as obvious. Looks to have noticeably more foliage though. I went back out to look again to see if tips had burned off elsewhere but I'm not seeing any damage. I don't recall a bunch of dead leaves other than what was on the previously posted tips. Maybe it feels less crowded with the larger container keeping neighboring foliage at a little more distance?Or the foliage that died is causing my eyes to be confused and it's not as "bad" as it looks




I'll see what it looks like next weekend with the new growth and update here.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Well, almost 10 days later and things are not lookin so good for that plant. It is struggling. The 4-5 days of near 100F heat the last week with relief on Saturday through tomorrow didn't do it any favors I'm sure. And then back to mid-upper 90s for 3 more days starting Wednesday. Should be ok from there. I moved it closer to the house and under my retractable awning that I was using to shade most of my plants to try and give it some relief.

Above ground observations are that it constantly looks wilted, but there is some new growth slowly coming in that looks ok (so far). The branches aren't soft/rotted nor is the stem. It has not been dry since the initial tips crispied from lack of water. It has been fertilized once since then, well, one and a half times heh, gave it the last bit of food from the watering can today, maybe half a liter if that. 3-2-4, half strength, same as I feed all the other pepper plants including its sibling that has much more white leaves/variegation and who is doing great. As previously noted but maybe worth mentioning again is that this plant's peppers turned dark purple within 2-3 days of growing. It also has white foliage that has shades of purple in it now (what's left of them) whereas the other plant's white foliage does not.

Below ground observations are I dug down and checked some of the roots (didn't pull it out, didn't want to break any of the longer established roots I found), they look healthy, I expected it to have more but there are some that extend to the edge of the pot. The soil felt quite hot today but I didn't measure, didn't need to heh. The soil is damp but not soggy or wet, I squeezed a handful from down deep and got zero drops even showing on my fist, I was worried it was over-watered but doesn't seem to be the issue. It is nowhere close to compacted, quite airy, maybe too airy? It felt like there wasn't much soil around the transplanted root bulk, possibly rather large air pockets, so I gently moved soil around to try and fill in those pockets and stabilize it more.

Pics to go with observations above. Today wasn't very hot, 88 or so, yesterday was upper 70s, always looked wilted even at those temps.


Roots looks healthy, no sign of rot to me.


And here's the other one, in a 5G bucket (black container is 10G and much wider), so roots are hotter despite the white bucket (I've compared multiple times in various temps, the wider black pots have noticeably cooler soil once you get away from the edges). Doing fine, white foliage isn't turning purple, peppers are almost all green with some minor mottling on some despite getting an extra hour of sunlight.


Now, as much as it will suck if this plant dies there is a silver lining that I discovered on my way back inside after taking pics...one of the peppers on the lowest branches had its tip stuck in the soil and was starting to rot so I took it off. Tore off the rotted end plus some insurance extra and took a bite. Bell peppery taste that made me go "Mmmm!", maybe a little sweetness, but no heat. About 5 seconds later felt a bit of a tingle which quickly grew to a pleasant level around a hot serrano, cayenne maybe, that lasted for about a minute then slowly subsided. So, silver lining is that even if it dies and I have to harvest them before they're ripe then at least I know some/most of them will make my mouth happy

 

[CaneDog]

I hope it gets back on track for you. Checking the roots makes sense. Sometimes I will gather shade cloth, landscape fabric, tarp, or some other material around the pots - especially the black pots - when the sun gets really hot to keep the roots cooler. Blocking the containers with something - even leaning cardboard pieces against them - so the sun doesn't hit directly can help a lot.

Another consideration is that the plant might have had bad shock from moving from more protected conditions into the direct hot outdoor sun. If the plant has been protected and the new growth comes in during those conditions, moving the plant to strong direct sun can cause that strong anthocyanin effect in the leaves and fruits and destroy the tender new tissues.

I guess another possibility is sometimes you do everything right and a plant just has problems. Not much you can do about that, though!

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Thanks, I hadn't considered ls cloth to cover a pot. I have a roll laying around doing nothing, I forget how thick.

It was thriving with full sun (dawn to 630 pm at the peak) until it got really wilted from excess dryness during a heat wave and the original 4-5 tips burnt that caused me to create this post paranoid something else was going on. At that point I relocated it to a spot that got about 1.5-2 hours less sunlight and about 5-6 hours with the awning out during the heatwave starting about noon. Burnt tips due to lack of water made sense so I didn't worry too much and then it proceeded to decline. I thought for sure the roots would be rotted but even the hole I dug on the other side looked the same, healthy, so I don't think it's root rot or something eating them.

As always, appreciate your thoughts (and anyone else's!), I know it can be hard with so many variables to nail a cause sometimes. Or outright impossible and just have to make a note and hope it doesn't happen again. Happy to take possibilities and consider likelihood! I'm here to learn and share eye candy Gonna give it extra shade from here out and try wrapping the container with landscape cloth.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

It looked even worse this morning with cool soil. I'm going to see if there's any branches with any remotely healthy looking foliage and try to propogate it but not giving that much chance of success. Kinda pointless this late in the season and the fact I'm unlikely to be overwintering plants but curious if it'll even root. I'll start pulling peppers either tonight or tomorrow since I don't want them to start rotting on the plant and hopefully most of them taste like the one I ate yesterday. Rather disappointing to lose a plant at this point but at least I will get some fruit off of it!
I dug through NMSU's pepper disease guide and came up empty handed. After harvesting and cutting branches for propogation experimenting I'm going to pull the rest of it out of the pot for a closer look. I'm wondering if something happened to the main stem and it's unable to to properly move water and thus nutrients up the plant. I noticed last night that it did seem kinda flimsy but couldn't figure out exactly why.

 

[CaneDog]

I just went outside to check on my trep werner plant that did something similar. I pruned each tip back a good bit beyond the dead stuff when I saw what happened, but today I see that those stems and the new growth don't look so great. It's late enough in the season that this one will get the bin, but I'm left wondering whether this is a physiological problem with the plant or a pathogen. I've leaned quite a bit toward the former, but I wonder about that latter as well.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

I'm sorry it's come to that for yours too Not knowing is the worst part. A lot like keeping tarantulas. Sometimes they die for no apparent reason while everyone else keeps truckin' along.

 

[Harmonic_Heat]

Harvested it last night, almost 40 of the larger pods, munched on some of the smaller ones. I swear some of them have a subtle orange flavor. One of them was just starting to turn yellowish-orange so maybe they weren't too far from ripening, a week or two, all I know is if the big ones all have some heat and the same flavor I'll happily eat them.

Roots looked healthy but I expected them to be more dense after almost 2 months so I'm wondering if it's related to underdeveloped root structure, but, that wouldn't explain sudden die off. Should the roots have been more developed? I put it back in the dirt for now but not outside. Just debating if I should cut it all the way back and see if it tries growing again or just toss it. Worst part, after losing the plant, is not knowing whether that 10g container is contaminated. Otoh, probably not the best time to transplant plants that are trying to ripen pods. Was thinking of moving my other Brain Strain Chocolate to it from a 5g bucket.