Harry's 2012/2013

Pr0digal_son · Jan 9, 2013

Nice plants Harry. I am adding goatsweed to my list this year,I really like the looks of that thing. Happy to see you have some lacewings helping you out,they pulverize aphids!!!

Justaguy · Jan 9, 2013

WalkGood said:
so where's the munching shot

He has his mouth full. Left end of his body in that pic.

harry · Jan 9, 2013

WalkGood said:
But probably not as smexy I love da look on your JHC, what a beauty!!! One of these days I want to try growing one ...

Excellent macro my friend!!! ... upon first look I missed that little bugger lower center right ... so where's the muching shot

Justaguy said:
He has his mouth full. Left end of his body in that pic.

I also found it difficult to spot the aphid. The aphid walking down the stem became the next serving.

Pr0digal_son said:
Nice plants Harry. I am adding goatsweed to my list this year,I really like the looks of that thing. Happy to see you have some lacewings helping you out,they pulverize aphids!!!

The lacewings alas didn't last long as the not many days after they were all but gone. It didn't click earlier when a wasp started visiting the plant that I should have moved sequestered it.

Some shots of most of my young plants below:

Season 2012-2013 Starts - Most of the first transplants
1st (Top) Row: Rocoto Red plant #1, Rocoto Red plant #3, Seven Pot Yellow
2nd Row: Mystery C. Chinense, Canario, Sukanya/White flowering C. Pubescens
3rd Row: Biquinho plant #3, Blondie, Carmine plant #2, Carmine plant #1

I suspect the mystery C. Chinense is a Habanero plant. I reused potting mix from a defunct Habanero plant pot. It plus the Biquinho in the above photo are doing well considering almost all of the potting mix fell off their roots when I separated them during transplant.

Season 2012-2013 Starts - Most of the first transplants from top

The distorted growth on some of the plants is thanks to aphids that were long since squished. The two Carmine plants have flower buds.

Season 2012-2013 Starts - Remaining starts

1st (top) Row: Rocoto Red plant #4, Biquinho plant #4
2nd Row: Rocoto Aji Largo, Aji Omnicolor
3rd Row: Not Fluorescent Purple, Biquinho plant #2

The young Not Fluorescent Purple already has a flower bud that is visible. It sprouted in mix that was since reused from the parent plants pot.to pot up my Scotch Bonnet TFM clone. The young Aji Omnicolor began life in its parent's pot.

harry · Jan 18, 2013

gasificada said:
How is your Blondie coming along?

Gassy, after seeing your Carmine plant I decided I should take a photo of mine:

Carmine Plants Side By Side

There's developing flower buds at the first fork of the main stem and on the longest side shoots.

Most of the C. Chinense season starts have at least one representative with developing flower buds:

Biquinho No3 - First Flower Buds

Blondie - First Flower Bud Just Visible

Mystery C. Chinense (Habanero?) - First Flower Buds

The Yellow 7 that is at a similar point of development is a noteable exception.

915river · Jan 18, 2013

Nice plants Harry :halo:

Island_Dan · Jan 19, 2013

Great looking grow. Wish I had your weather!

harry · Jan 19, 2013

915river said:
Nice plants Harry

Thanks Vladan.

It will be interesting to see if any of the C.chinense season starts handle the extremely hot days as well as the Limón.

The Goat's Weed for those watching barely blinked in 40 °C heat in direct sunlight.

Island_Dan said:
Great looking grow. Wish I had your weather!

How about I trade you the over 35 °C days?

I took some late afternoon photos:

Habanero Chocolate - Side View

The Habanero Chocolate survived a few bouts of leaf shedding and held onto its pods. This plant fruited heavily in the same pot last season.

Trinidad Scorpion plant #1 - Side View

I should have enough ripe TS pods to make a superhot sauce soon.

Trinidad Scorpion plant #1 - Early Pod

The texture of the pods is more evident in the shade.

Trippa · Jan 19, 2013

Looking good bro. Looking real good and super healthy ... nice work!! Plenty of pods and plenty of colour ... I miss growing the Choc hab this year ... such a great plant

harry · Jan 27, 2013

Trippa said:
Looking good bro. Looking real good and super healthy ... nice work!! Plenty of pods and plenty of colour ... I miss growing the Choc hab this year ... such a great plant

Speaking of the Chocolates I note that the chocolate has faded from the first pod after about a month:

harry said:
Jamaican Hot Chocolate plant in 25 cm diameter pot

Jamaican Hot Chocolate - First Pod of Season

The first pod featured above is a light red to my eye. A pod that changed colour more recently is visible at the centre of the photo.

Caribben Red - Light Red Pod

I finally managed to harvest a Caribbean Red pod before the caterpillars destroyed it plus another darker pod not pictured today.

Datil - Mid Season Start

My youngest season start is a Datil plant from different seed to my big plant.

Carmine plant #2 - First Flower

The first Carmine plant to reach bloom was the second one to sprout.

orrevs · Feb 9, 2013

That goatweed plant is just amazing!

harry · Feb 11, 2013

orrevs said:
That goatweed plant is just amazing!

The Goat's Weed plant has become rather lop sided of late and will be in need of a prune. There are new shoots near the base that I may aim to encourage.

A photo of a Red Rocoto flowers to pair up with the photo of the source pod:

Red Rocoto No2 - One of the first two flowers to reach bloom

harry said:
A photo of the source pod shows what I hope to see from this plant. It was a large three lobed red pod.

Source pod of the Red Rocoto seed

Sampled a better sized 7(J?) last Sunday week.

Red 7

Red 7 Halved

The above pod had a lot more placenta than the small runt of a pod I ate in January.

The only TScorp Chocolate that fell off plant #2 a couple of nights ago went down with lunch today:

TScorp Chocolate - Lonely Stringer

This is the only true stringer pod from the 4 plants that I have seen over two years. I find the plants unconvincing in terms of form and heat.

harry · Mar 2, 2013

I harvested pods off red TScorp. plant #1 and my Caribbean Red plant before they were sprayed to treat an entrenched aphid infestation.

The red TScorps. went into the first sauce:

Code:

Mango - TScorp.- Peach Sauce Ingredients
500 g Mango
190 g TScorp, de-seeded
120 g Peach, white flesh
1.5 tsp Citric Acid powder

The volume of the blended ingredients was about 0.75 L.

The Caribbean Reds went into the second sauce plus some red 7pot pods to kick up the heat:

Code:

Mango - Caribbean Red - 7pot Sauce
420 g Mango
90 g Caribbean Red, de-seeded
30 g 7pot, de-seeded
60 mL Water, distilled
1 tsp Citric Acid powder

My goal was to have 1 part chilli to 2 parts other ingredients. The burn from tasting the sauce left on the spoon used to stir and bottle the sauce lasted several minutes.

On the grow side of things the first ripe pod from a season start was on the first C.chinense Limón plant that was transplanted into the garden:

Limón plant #1 of 2012

All of my C.pubescens starts have suffered bronzing and then necrosis of the growth tips. My second red Rocoto start though managed to set some pods before the young tip and leave necrosis set hit.The rain of the past week has given me a chance to see if switching the feeding to 1/8 strength Manutec Tomato Food in rain water once per day. Initial results appear to be promising.

megamoo · Mar 5, 2013

Rain water is always the better option as long as it hasn't been sitting in a tank for a long time, and as long as you don't live next to an industrial acid rain zone

This season my spouts started life in a hydro which is constantly aerated water. When they were transplanted into soil I had a big 15litre bucket with an air bubbler. I'd water them with it plus some fert additives then refill the bucket and let it go all night. They seemed to like that.

The burnt leaf tips are probably too much ferts. What were you feeding them before you switched?

harry · Mar 5, 2013

megamoo said:
Rain water is always the better option as long as it hasn't been sitting in a tank for a long time, and as long as you don't live next to an industrial acid rain zone

This season my spouts started life in a hydro which is constantly aerated water. When they were transplanted into soil I had a big 15litre bucket with an air bubbler. I'd water them with it plus some fert additives then refill the bucket and let it go all night. They seemed to like that.

The burnt leaf tips are probably too much ferts. What were you feeding them before you switched?

The growth tip necrosis wasn't the typical burnt tip problem. I've read a number of descriptions of nutrient deficiencies and toxicities and found it difficult to match them to what I've observed. The lack of vigour of some of the plants to my eye hinted at an issue with the take up of nutrients.

Since the hotter weather began I went from 1/4 strength to 1/8 strength Amgrow Nitrosol. What has become apparent is the implication of a fertiliser I was using stating a minimum analysis:

Code:

Amgrow Nitrosol Minimum Analysis
10.5% Nitrosol
2.3% Phosphorus
6.8% Potassium
1.68% Calcium

The product label of the newer batches lists a more detailed analysis:

Code:

Amgrow Nitrosol
Minimum Analysis
12.3% Total Nitrogen (N)
5.0% N as ammonium
1.1% N as organic
4.8% N as urea
1.4% N as nitrate
1.9% Total Phosphorus (P)
1.5% P as water soluble
0.4% P as citrate
13.1% Total Potassium (K)
9.4% K as nitrate & phosphate
3.7% K as sulphate
1.3% Total Calcium (Ca)
0.5% Ca as bone
0.8% Ca as nitrate & phosphate
7.3% Sulphur (S) as sulphate
Plus trace elements
N:P 6.5

Seeing the new minimum analysis raised the question as to when the product changed.

The combination of the fertiliser with the tap water available resulted in too much precipitate for my liking. I don't recall seeing as much precipitate last season.

The young C. Pubescens plants that were affected were watered for the most part with solution made from rain water. One of the red Rocoto plants has managed to begin bloom again since I changed the fertiliser.

The Manutec Tomato Food analsys for comparison:

harry said:

The details on the back of the box are as follows:

Code:

ANALYSIS ....................... % W/W
TOMATO FOOD 14:7:24
Nitrogen (N) as Urea ............. 6.8
Nitrogen (N) as Nitrate .......... 6.1
Nitrogen (N) as Ammonium ......... 1.1
TOTAL NITROGEN (N) .............. 14.0
Phosphorus (P) as Water Soluble .. 7.0
TOTAL PHOSPHORUS (P) ............. 7.0
Potassium (K) as Nitrate ........ 18.0
Potassium (K) as Phosphate ....... 6.0
TOTAL POTASSIUM (K) ............. 24.0
Maximum Biuret ................... 0.4
TRACE ELEMENTS
Calcium (Ca) as EDTA Chelate ... 0.100
Magnesium (Mg) as EDTA Chelate . 0.030
Magnesium (Mg) as Sulphate ..... 0.144
Sulphur (S) as Sulphate ........ 0.186
Iron (Fe) as EDTA Chelate ...... 0.065
Manganese (Mn) as EDTA Chelate . 0.026
Copper (Cu) as EDTA Chelate .... 0.015
Zinc (Zn) as EDTA Chelate ...... 0.015
Boron (B) as Borate ............ 0.011
Molybdenum (Mo) as Molybdate ... 0.004

The NPK of 14:7:24 seems less off when expressed as a ratio of 2:1:3.43.

Aussie · Mar 5, 2013

I have the same problem with my pubescens and I thought that it must be mite damage. Early in the season a few (but not all) of my plants started to suffer from this. I nursed a few through and they picked up again but now it has returned. It only seems to affect the growing tips, the rest of the leaves seem fine. I treated them with Yates tomato and vegetable dust. If it worked then it was a temporary solution. It's weird because some of my pubescens plants have not been affected and they are all treated the same.

Sawyer · Mar 5, 2013

harry said:
The combination of the fertiliser with the tap water available resulted in too much precipitate for my liking. I don't recall seeing as much precipitate last season.

You might try heating the water to get everything to dissolve better, then letting it cool before use. Sometimes the trace elements are difficult to dissolve in room temperature water. I've had this problem before and while heating doesn't eliminate the precipitate, it does reduce it.

harry · Mar 5, 2013

Aussie said:
I have the same problem with my pubescens and I thought that it must be mite damage. Early in the season a few (but not all) of my plants started to suffer from this. I nursed a few through and they picked up again but now it has returned. It only seems to affect the growing tips, the rest of the leaves seem fine. I treated them with Yates tomato and vegetable dust. If it worked then it was a temporary solution. It's weird because some of my pubescens plants have not been affected and they are all treated the same.

The thought of mites did cross my mind earlier. It may be time to hit the Canario with some kind of treatment as it was least developed when it became affected by this issue.

Did you take any of the photo of the damage to your C.pubescens plants?

Sawyer said:
You might try heating the water to get everything to dissolve better, then letting it cool before use. Sometimes the trace elements are difficult to dissolve in room temperature water. I've had this problem before and while heating doesn't eliminate the precipitate, it does reduce it.

Was Calcium your primary precipitate suspect?

Sawyer · Mar 6, 2013

harry said:
Was Calcium your primary precipitate suspect?

I use Peters STEM and the analysis doesn't mention calcium, so I don't think that's it. My well water has a lot of calcium in it already, though, and that may affect the solubility of other things.

Aussie · Mar 8, 2013

Hey Harry, here is a photo of the kind of damage that I'm seeing:

geeme · Jun 9, 2013

I'm seeing signs of early fert burn in some of your pics. Healthy chile pepper leaves of all varieties are typically rather smooth-surfaced. There may be a slight variation from smooth, but if you can describe the leaves as bubbly, bumpy, or anything other than relatively smooth, you've at least got the early start of a problem. Note the "bumpiness" is a very early sign which occurs before anything that actually looks like burning. Backing off the ferts at the "bumpy" stage will prevent further damage.