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Help diagnose my suffering ghostie. ):

Hi, all.

I am new to growing peppers but not to growing plants. I have a B.S. in Horticulture and work at a hydroponics shop. A customer came in to work about two months ago with a chocolate ghost pepper that they could no longer care for, and thus I became the proud parent of my first pepper plant (and one of the most difficult to grow, from what I hear). They had grown it from seed in soil and it was doing great when it came to me, although had far outgrown its first pot. So I transplanted it into a 5-gallon with Fox Farm Ocean Forest and let it acclimate before starting it on a fertilizer regimen. It had quite a few flowers when I transplanted it, but the shock caused them all to drop.

Not long after replanting, all of the plant's leaves developed these bizarre black stipples that I can't diagnose. The black stipples progress down the petioles and darken right at the point of attachment until the leaves finally abscise. The majority of the older foliage has now fallen off, and new growth has both the spots and has developed a twisted, deformed habit. I'm assuming that, because of the systemic nature and the bizarre stunting that it must be viral. There are no indications of bacterial infections and no pests. The plant is treated with AzaMax twice a week (one drench, one foliar) as are all the plants in our store.

Is it a mosaic virus? The black spots have me confused. If it is a virus, is my best bet to destroy it?

Any help would be much appreciated. Here are the diagnostic images.

Happy pepper on the day it arrived:

YmrGr.jpg


Note: cuttings were taken on the day of arrival, and they are healthy and seem to be virus-free.

Thanks!

Pwnie
 
I may be way off, but how much fertilzer are you feeding it? i know if i get over 700ppm on my indoor peppers they start getting nute burn, it kind of look like them leaves. is it possible you can just be giving it to much?

Like i said, i kind of suck, but it look similar to mine at one point.
 
Looks like a nutrient issue to me (Too much of something). I'm not familiar with the type of soil you used, but I have used various "organic" soils in the past and ended up with plants showing "fertilizer burn" like the pictures you show.
 
with you being in horticulture, I don't know how much to say but here is my 2 cents worth...

I took a good look and first thing that came to mind was bacterial leaf spot but that just doesn't fit to me...if it is you will have to destroy the plant to get rid of it and it spreads easily...lets hope it is NOT BLS and that it is a fungal issue...

link to pictures of BLS - https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=ppwl&cp=17&gs_id=1t&xhr=t&q=bacterial+leaf+spot&tok=xrtyUPuKaxzB6v6-lB3J8w&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1333&bih=679&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=bacterial+leaf+spot+in+peppers&oq=bacterial+leaf+spot+in+peppers&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=335786l341120l2l343602l30l29l0l19l19l0l359l1623l3.4.2.1l10l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=72b1c7927cded77f&biw=1333&bih=679

Link to treatment of BLS - http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/PepperLeafSpot.htm

If the foliage is kept too warm and moist with no air flow then a fungal issue could be your cause...

link to pictures of fungus spot - https://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&q=bacterial+leaf+spot+in+peppers&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=335786l341120l2l343602l30l29l0l19l19l0l359l1623l3.4.2.1l10l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1333&bih=679&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=fungal+leaf+spot+in+peppers&pbx=1&oq=fungal+leaf+spot+in+peppers&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=3198l4033l0l6091l6l5l0l0l0l1l173l680l1.4l5l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=72b1c7927cded77f&biw=1333&bih=679

Link to treatment of some fungii - http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p0801.htm
 
The Ocean Forest is an organic soil that does contain a good amount of nutrients in the form of kelp, guano, etc., but the cutting that I took was also planted in the same soil and is doing fine, at least thus far - maybe it manifests with age? Let's hope not! The sick plant is fertilized less frequently than the healthy one, so I'm not sure.
 
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