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Fungal or bacterial spotting?

Peptacular

Peptacular

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Anyone able to diagnose this and suggest treatment? I already removed the affected leaves and am considering spraying the plants with an epsom salt solution or copper fungicide.
 
Are you watering the soil in such a way as to keep the above ground portion of the plant dry, or watering the above ground part too?
 
Hopefully it's not BLS - been fighting that here for 18 months or so and it's no fun, really ... If it is, AACT. AACT fast, too.
 
I have to use AACT and copper here, especially during the rainy months, and especially-especially during the rainy months where the nightime humidity stays VERY high ...
 
Hopefully it's just some other deficiency or overage of nutrients or something ...
 
I haven't been watering them much at all really. Late April was warm and sunny so i planted some of them out. Mother Nature rewarded me with an unusually high amount of nights in the 30s and nearly incessant clouds, winds, and rain.

My plants that haven't been planted out, and were half the size or less to begin with, look ready to overtake my older plants outside. Thank god I only transplanted 4 out of laziness.

And thanks for the advice, ill start buying stuff to make aact ASAP. Double acronym, awwwww yish.
 
Looks like a little bit of bacterial leaf spot. to me


I see you have the soil covered with pastic. I'd take it off to get air to the soil as keeping the soil covered like that can be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria.
 
 
Wow, good to know, i always thought it helped protect dirt to leaf transmission. although I'd like to make that a last resort since I remember doing hours of weeding a day when my mom had a garden lol.

Would poking holes in the soil cover for air be any kind of worthwhile compromise?
 
That makes sense. Plus the massive amounts of rain and high clay content of my soil are probably compounding the issue.

One thing I know is, based on what I've seen so far, my next season will be almost exclusively container based.

As far as peppers at least.
 
Clay is bad for plants. Yikes. you are correct there! Good idea to grow in pots next yr!


P.s I didnt know they were in the ground till you said something. Now the plastic makes more sense due to weeds coming up. It still isnt completly necessary due to the reasons I explained. I would take the plastic off if the leaf spot worsens ( last resort)
 
megahot said:
Clay is bad for plants. Yikes. you are correct there! Good idea to grow in pots next yr!
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Agreed with the rest of your posts, but i disagree with this to an extent. Certain heavy, unamended clays can be bad for plants. But amended, worked over clay is great for plants. I'd take it over, cough, sandy loam any day of the week ;). And growing in good ground soil can be a lot more forgiving than growing in containers, which need a lot of attention.
 
To the original poster, if you are trying to reduce backsplash on your leaves, then a 1" or 2" layer of pine bark mulch would do the trick. All i would do is sift out the larger pieces of sapwood. It'll slowly compost into excellent aerated soil.
 
Keep the plant's leaves as dry as possible, no overhead wetting, unless you are treating with anti-bacterial or anti-fungal. I don't recall epsom salt as being very beneficial for something like that btw.
 
Really hard to tell from the pic, the spots are so small. If it is BLS you do need to act fast since that can spread from tiny to disaster very quickly. Bacteria have the same exponential growth pattern as aphids. Removing the affected leaves was the right thing. AACT is probably good too, and some people have reported good results with a spray of aspirin crushed up in water, but I haven't seen any research that confirms that. Be very careful when you water to make sure you don't let any water splash up on the plant as that will promote spreading the infection.
 
@megahot Why so much hate for clay soil? Clay has the same mineral rich composition as the fancy bags of supplements that people pay good money for, except you get it by the kiloton for free and it is already in the ground. Just add organic matter and maybe a little gypsum or lime and you have some of the best growing medium in the world.
 
PepperWhisperer said:
 and some people have reported good results with a spray of aspirin crushed up in water, but I haven't seen any research that confirms that.
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I know that aspirin is anti-bacterial to a certain degree, not sure if it's anti-fungal though.
 
Most of you probably know this: but Salicylic acid is a beneficial chemical  that plants produce when under certain types stress. Feeding aspirin water to plants is similar to boosting immune cells within animals.
 
It will not hurt for the original poster to feed aspirin water to his plants (via roots especially), and it may even help in that it would reduce plant stress. I'm just not sure if he should spray it on the leaves though, those leaves need to stay dry unless sprayed with tried and true anti-bacterial / anti-fungal chemicals.
 
One 325mg tablet of genuine aspirin per gallon of water btw.
 
^^^ what he said. My memory of the aspirin trick was pretty fuzzy. Thanks for the dosing info, I was looking for it last year and never could find it. Hopefully I won't need it this year!
 
Ill try the aspirin bit for sure! In addition to all the other great advice. feel like I'm fighting a losing battle though. Still raining and warm. the humidity was at 80% even when the rain took a breaks. Cloudy with chance of rain for the rest of the week :(
 
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