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HeatMiser's Keeping it Simple With Old Seeds 2020 Grow

Well here it is - after a two year hiatus, I decided to get myself a new grow light (HLG 100), grow peppers again and join this community.

I decided to it simple this year and grow fewer varieties from seeds I already have. These were packaged in 2014 or earlier so it will serve as a viability test as well.

After talking with my wife, we decided on the following 4 varieties

1 Super Hot:
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2013.

1 Ornamental:
Numex Twilight. Seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute packaged in 2012.

2 Varieties for Cooking:
Jalafuego. Seeds from tomatogrowers.com. Packaged before 2014
Chiltepin. Seeds I collected after a trip to Texas in 2014.

I have the following goals for this season
  1. Get a decent batch of "hot" Jalapenos. You have to be lucky to find a hot Jalapeno at the store. We plan to pickle them to be used in NACHOS
  2. Incorporate Chiltepin peppers in our cooking (salsas, tacos, etc)
  3. Make some powder with the Trinidad Scorpion Peppers. I've made Ghost Pepper Powder before and it's amazing in stuff like Pho.
  4. Experiment with DWC and Kratky for peppers. My experience is with Dutch Buckets.
  5. Experiment with outdoor hydroponics. Success here means I'll be able to plant more peppers in future years
  6. Try crossing peppers. Always been curious, never really tried it. This year, it's happening.
  7. Growing a Trinidad Scorpion in my office at work. Dare my boss to try one…

The plan is as follows:
  • 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal DWC indoors.
  • Grow 1 Chiltepin and 1 Numex Twilight indoors in smaller Kratky containers.
  • Grow 1 Trinidad Scorpion in a 5 gal DWC at work

As the weather improves, I'll set up 1 Trinidad Scorpion and 1 Jalafuego in 5 gal Kratky bucket outdoors. I'll also clone as many plants as I can get away with and put them in soil containers outside.

That's it for plans…

Here's the actual progress so far

12/20/2019 -
• Started soaking Chiltepin seeds in a weak solution of chamomille tea
• Planted Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Jalafuego and Numex Twilight seeds in rockwool cubes. 2 seeds of each per cube. Placed on a heat mat inside an airtight container with some water on the bottom for moisture

12/21/2019
• Planted Chiltepin seeds
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in weak chamomille tea solution for about 25 hours
• 3 rockwool cubes with seeds soaked in 9 parts water, 1 part bleach solution for 5 minutes

12/23/2019
• Noticed a hook in one of the Jalafuego cubes

12/26/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Jalafuego cubes
• One Twilight cube has a hook

12/27/2019
• Hooks on all 3 Twilight cubes. One of them is a bit leggy
• Noticed one Chiltepin seed starting to sprout, from the cube that was soaked in bleach
• Transferred Jalafuego and Twilights to the light and gave them some food, General Hydroponics mild vegetative solution

12/28/2019
• One Jalafuego cube has 2 seedlings, new hook came out.

12/29/2019
• One Chiltepin hook coming out of the cube. Moved the cube to the light
• All 6 Jalafuego seeds have sprouted. 3 seedlings are now upright and 3 hooks are coming out. Germination rate is 6/6

12/30/2019
• Hook from Trinidad Moruga Scorpion came out. Moved to light

1/1/2020
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in bleach solution. Moved to light
• Hook from Chiltepin seed in chamomile tea came out. Moved to light

1/2/2020
• Last Twilight sprouted. Germination rate is 6/6
• Two more Trinidad Moruga Hooks

1/3/2020
• Moved two Trinidad Moruga cubes to light

1/5/2020
• Another Trinidad Moruga sprouted. Germination rate is 4/6

1/7/2020
• Roots from Jalafuego, Twilight and Chiltepin started poking through the bottom of the rockwool cubes. Moved the best plants to their own individual kratky container. Using Mild Vegetative solution from Flora 3 Part solution
• One T5 bulb died. Changed the light to the HLG 100.

1/9/2020
• New Trinidad Moruga Sprouted. Germination Rate: 5/6
• Added an air stone to the Jalafuego Kratky container turning it into a DWC.

1/10/2020
  • Moved another Jalafuego to its own Kratky container

Thanks for reading all of this... I'll be posting some pictures soon!
 
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acs1 said:
Imo, wouldn't do the hot water for inside plants.
Wouldn't move the plants at all. Spray plant right in place. 
Move the plants, branches, leafs, as little as possible till it gets a good coat of neem,, imo.
 
  Every time a plant is moved you've shaken loose mites and eggs to fall on the floor, table, bench, carpet, walls, your cloths, shoes, wherever they can. Outside its not as much of a problem, but iirr your plants are all inside..? And from the looks of your pics/plants you've got broad mites real bad, maybe thousands of microscopic mites/eggs, or more, are on your plants. If a hundred mites/eggs fall off when moving plant around to dip it in hot water, you've now complicated your mite problem/eradication and duration. Thus all you've read about how hard it is to get rid of mites becomes true...
 
jmo
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Thanks acs1,
 
I generally agree with the recommendation not to move the plants. However, the damage here is already done, across the entire grow. I've been dealing with this for more than a month now trying to pin the multiple symptoms I've been seeing (leaf loss, bronzing of leaves, crinkling, chlorosis, fasciation, deformed fruit, etc., etc. it's been quite a trip!) to a nutrient issue, which turned out to be wrong. Only this week, by chance, I happened to stumble upon a picture of a pepper just like the ones I had a few weeks ago - and yesterday I was able to positively ID a culprit...
 
I will definitely do the neem treatment as has been suggested (appreciate the link to your post btw), and potentially move the plants outdoors to let whatever critters have been shaken loose indoors over the past few weeks die before starting another grow... but there are no more plants to infect. I'm just glad I didn't quit before I could positively identify the root cause of these problems and try out a remedy. Definitely doesn't hurt to stick with this a couple of weeks longer to see if the plants turn the corner.
 
Sorry I didn't see your glog post earlier to share what solid7 has taught me...
 
 Glad of your persistence, not giving up might have saved your plants if you're lucky... Persistence is the best virtue for problem solving of most anything....
 
Surprised its been a month and all the plants aren't dead. Down here our broad mites are viscous and within days, a week or 2  maybe, total plants are dead. Must be whimpy broad mites up in the PNW...lol
 
Good luck, keep us posted, hoping you caught it in time...
 
acs1 said:
Sorry I didn't see your glog post earlier to share what solid7 has taught me...
 
 Glad of your persistence, not giving up might have saved your plants if you're lucky... Persistence is the best virtue for problem solving of most anything....
 
Surprised its been a month and all the plants aren't dead. Down here our broad mites are viscous and within days, a week or 2  maybe, total plants are dead. Must be whimpy broad mites up in the PNW...lol
 
Good luck, keep us posted, hoping you caught it in time...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks! no worries - this grow has definitely been quite the trip. Even if I don't manage to save the plants or get even a modest harvest, the experience in identifying this pest has been worth it. Hopefully this will prove to be helpful for other growers in here too, as I've documented the various forms of damage these mites can do. Future plants won't go through a full month and a half of leaf loss/stunting with no treatment...
 
Again, thanks for the help!
 
Well, the plants were dunked yesterday into the bathtub in hot water held between 115 - 120F for 15 minutes. It was a lot easier and faster than I expected.
 
I took 3 leaves from different locations across 3 different plants. I was only able to find 2 live mites in 2 out of the 9 leaves that were sampled. Eggs were found on all 9 leaves. I'm not sure if the eggs are still viable, but it's safer to assume that they are
 
Before the treatment I was saw mites on all leaves I sampled. So I would consider the first round of attack a success...
 
Eggs hatch in 2 to 3 days, and they won't produce eggs until they reach maturity several days afterwards. So, in order to maximize damage, I will wait for 3 days to allow most of these eggs to hatch. A new round of treatment will be performed then. 
 
HeatMiser said:
 
Hey Tybo!
 
This is it https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LAX52IQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 
 
I just went with the first one I saw, it's pretty cheap, and I think it's already paid for itself. Hopefully we'll get a handle on this problem.
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Thanks for the link.  I may get that one myself.
 
HeatMiser said:
Well, the plants were dunked yesterday into the bathtub in hot water held between 115 - 120F for 15 minutes. It was a lot easier and faster than I expected.
 
I took 3 leaves from different locations across 3 different plants. I was only able to find 2 live mites in 2 out of the 9 leaves that were sampled. Eggs were found on all 9 leaves. I'm not sure if the eggs are still viable, but it's safer to assume that they are
 
Before the treatment I was saw mites on all leaves I sampled. So I would consider the first round of attack a success...
 
Eggs hatch in 2 to 3 days, and they won't produce eggs until they reach maturity several days afterwards. So, in order to maximize damage, I will wait for 3 days to allow most of these eggs to hatch. A new round of treatment will be performed then. 
Click to expand...
 
 
Sounds like you are making progress.  Following your glog has been a learning experience albeit at your expense!  Hope you get things worked out.  I'll be following along to see how it goes.
 
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Tybo said:
 
Thanks for the link.  I may get that one myself.
 
 
 
Sounds like you are making progress.  Following your glog has been a learning experience albeit at your expense!  Hope you get things worked out.  I'll be following along to see how it goes.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Tybo...
 
Yup, if somebody learns something from this grow, I guess that'll be something good to come out of this! 
 
Siv said:
HM, I just read through your glog from the start and wow, what a beating you've been taking. I'm glad you've identified the problem and are on the way back. I bet that once you're mites are eradicated, the plants bounce back with gusto!
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"Beating" is an understatement, haha. The problem was not knowing what was going on with my plants when this all started, as there were multiple different symptoms. My reference book on peppers by Paul Bosland doesn't mention broad mites, so I was utterly unprepared to deal with this.
 
Now I've read enough about these things that hopefully there's still some fight left in these plants to get them to bounce back. One of the best quotes I found online during my research, which sums up my whole grow:
 
"Unfortunately, in most cases damage is usually not detected until significant damage is sustained. Damaged foliage will not recover. A microscope will be necessary to detect the mites otherwise you will be pulling your hair out as to why your plants and garden are not performing" (http://www.gogrowhydroponics.co.uk/blog/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-dreaded-broad-mite-cyclamen-mite/)
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 
Well, triage is part of the game - so that we can focus on those plants that are more likely to come back from this.
 
Not this guy...
K4sPQ5H.jpg

 
Tomorrow is the second round of Neem. We'll see how the plants do afterwards.
 
Time for an update...
 
We are making some progress in our fight against broad mites. I've been sampling random leaves from each plant on a regular basis and the numbers have been reduced significantly. Eggs are harder to find and I've only detected one live mite since the second spraying of neem last Wednesday. So the strategy of waiting for current eggs to hatch before each spraying seems to be paying off. Next round of Neem is this Sunday.
 
Some pics of the plants:
Big TS: This is the one plant I really care about, but it had to be done - the plant was just too big to be sprayed effectively. It was dropping too many leaves so I gave it a good pruning. It makes spraying A LOT easier.
r4cATO4.jpg

 
The good news is that there is new growth coming out from practically every node. This time the growth is coming in green, as opposed to my other plants where it would come in brown since mites were just hanging out munching on it. I haven't found any mites nor eggs on random samplings of the new growth
MKFhO8J.jpg

 
The one pod is halfway through the ripening process.  
ozN7Fxm.jpg

 
Kratky Jalafuego: This one is showing some healthy new growth after months of no activity. 
KAqpIGO.jpg

 
Kratky TS: This one also has new growth coming in. Even though the new leaves looks crinkly, I've only found 1 live mite on this plant since the last spraying (and it didn't look very healthy BTW). I wonder if this is because of the spraying or just the aftermath of mites eating on these leaves.
jGDcjyV.jpg

 
Overall, we're still pretty much battling these bastards - and while my expectations for huge plants with lots of pods have been greatly reduced, I have gained quite a bit of experience in detecting and fighting these little evil a-holes. This will definitely come in handy in future grows.
 
Tybo said:
Things are looking good HM.  It's still early so you may have a good season yet!  I hope the Trinidad Scorpion really puts out.  I don't know if you remember but my seeds didnt germinate and I think we both got them from CPI so I'm hoping to see yours do good!
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Tybo, I'm pumped to see what this plant will do if we successfully get rid of the mites. Things should be better now with regards to pod setting since the plant should now be used to the HLG100 it is currently under. We'll see...
 
 
PaulG said:
Good to see a recovery in progress, HM.
 
Hope to see a lush jungle there real soon!
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I hope I'll get to see a jungle too Paul - at this point I'm cautiously optimistic since there's been some progress in terms of growth. However, female mites that didn't mate will produce male eggs. So, in theory, a single female could cause mite numbers to jump back up... nasty nasty critters.
 
Thanks HM for documenting and sharing your experience. Until reading this glog, I had never heard of broad mites. They are apparently a serious pest in Chiapas as well, where they cause damage to commercial papaya production.
 
ahayastani said:
Thanks HM for documenting and sharing your experience. Until reading this glog, I had never heard of broad mites. They are apparently a serious pest in Chiapas as well, where they cause damage to commercial papaya production.
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Glad you've found it useful - I had never heard of them either until after they had decimated all my plants! Chiapas has the perfect climate for them as well. They must be a pain to deal with in commercial scale agriculture.
 
Good, looks like plants are responding, great sign.
 
If it was me, knowing what I now know about Broard Mites, I'd prune off all deformed, stunted, funky looking leafs and all stems that have only 1/no leaf on them. Cut it way back. You notice most of the new growth you see is at the bottom of the plant. At this point, the more bad stuff you cut off the faster the plant will recover with new growth...
 
Mites might be gone but the toxic saliva they left is still seeping back into your plant. Chop all that shit out. No mater how much you want all that foliage to heal up, it wont. And that old deformed seeped in toxin foliage is not doing any meaningful photosynthesis. Guaranteed it will NEVER heal and just keep your plant stunted not letting it fully recover. That deformed stunted old growth is seeping in toxin in slow release mode...
 
jmo
 
Nice rescue btw....
 
acs1 said:
Good, looks like plants are responding, great sign.
 
If it was me, knowing what I now know about Broard Mites, I'd prune off all deformed, stunted, funky looking leafs and all stems that have only 1/no leaf on them. Cut it way back. You notice most of the new growth you see is at the bottom of the plant. At this point, the more bad stuff you cut off the faster the plant will recover with new growth...
 
Mites might be gone but the toxic saliva they left is still seeping back into your plant. Chop all that shit out. No mater how much you want all that foliage to heal up, it wont. And that old deformed seeped in toxin foliage is not doing any meaningful photosynthesis. Guaranteed it will NEVER heal and just keep your plant stunted not letting it fully recover. That deformed stunted old growth is seeping in toxin in slow release mode...
 
jmo
 
Nice rescue btw....
Click to expand...
 
Thanks acs,
 
Yup, funky looking leaves won't heal. I've been removing the worst looking leaves/branches off of the plants before the spraying. At this point the plant in the last picture is the only one that hasn't seen much chopping - it's the one that's in the worst shape of the plants that have made it this far and didn't want to stress it even more. So far it seems to be hanging in there but there's definitely room for more pruning. The growth on the other plants is coming in okay at this point, so I think I'll just let them be and spray more if needed.
 
Question for you - how often and for how long did you spray your plants? I've been spraying mine twice a week and yesterday (Sunday) was the 3rd spraying, on top of the warm water bath they were subjected to in the beginning. I haven't seen any eggs or live mites since that third spraying through random sampling, so things are looking OK for now. I'd like to prevent another flare-up, but exterminating every last one of them might be impossible.
 
Thanks!
 
HeatMiser said:
 
Question for you - how often and for how long did you spray your plants? I've been spraying mine twice a week and yesterday (Sunday) was the 3rd spraying, on top of the warm water bath they were subjected to in the beginning. I haven't seen any eggs or live mites since that third spraying through random sampling, so things are looking OK for now. I'd like to prevent another flare-up, but exterminating every last one of them might be impossible.
 
Thanks!
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I've found weekly or at the most, 10day preventive maintenance works for me. Not fun, but works.
 
I've tried in past years to just spray a couple times during/after an infestation. Then after all pests were dead/gone wouldn't spray any more. Within 2-3 weeks I'd have another infestation of the same pest or a new pest or both.
 
All it takes is a very light infestation of broad mites to deform/stunt/damage all pods foliage on your plants, so I try to avoid that at all cost. It take a while to see the continuing damage after they're gone. Mites can turn a banana pepper plant that has produced 5-6" long nice smooth straight pods into a plant that produces bent, short, twisted pods for ever more even after mites are gone for months. Even new pods from new flowers are deformed damaged from the get go. The pods will taste good, plants will produce well, and be healthy. But never produce like they did before the broad mite infestation. At least thats been my experience here in sFL.
 
  Got a peter pepper plant that use to produce the text book looking peter peppers, no more. They are now twisted, pointy, bent, shriveled pods after 1 short, light, broad mite/aphid/white fly infestation. And no mites/pests for at least 3-4 months, not even one mite I can find anywhere on that plant and its isolated... Telling you, mite toxin they inject into leafs is evil, pure evil. If plants could talk they'd be crying in pain from a broad mite infestation and probably for a long long time afterwards.
 
For routine PM sprays, I do a not quite as drenching spray, use less harsh daytime clarified HD neem oil. Mixed at only 2 tbs per gal is good to avoid infestations and keep plants healthy, looking shiny, and producing mega pods...
 
If you've done 2 cold pressed neem drenching sprays at least 3-4 days apart, my bet is no soft body sucking pests/eggs/larvae/nymphs are anywhere to be found on your plants. Not so sure about the surrounding area though..? Thats why a light PM spray every week on all your plants is used by many successful gardeners that have been thru pest problems...
 
This year, here in sFL, pests are out of control on my lake. They are bigger, more persistent, and in numbers like I've never seen. Not sure if its the same in the rest of our country..? Thank God for the neem tree...
 
jmo
 
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