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Hungarian Wax peppers/Hot Banana Peppers

J

jinglebells0518

Hi all! I have some hungarian wax pepper plants growing but I am having some trouble with the buds and peppers dropping/falling off the plants. I have 7 plants, 2 of them have lost every bud they have produced and have never had a pepper make it and the others lose two to three times more than they produce. I cannot figure out why the peppers/flowers/buds keep dropping. I lose them most often a day or less after the flower drops but I have also been losing many before the the bud even opens. They are all a clean break right at the stem so it appears the plant is rejecting them rather than a bug or a disease affecting them. I have been self pollinating all the flowers that opened thinking that was the problem but even those peppers continue to drop. 
 
There has been a lot of sun and relatively hot temperatures lately. I would say the temperatures have been ranging from mid to high 60s at night and a maximum of 90-93 degrees during the day but more often in the mid-80s. Is it possible the temperatures are too hot to be sustainable? The plants get direct sunlight about 6 hours a day. Any suggestions to keep my peppers from dying or any other things that could be causing this? I should have hundreds of peppers by now and between the 7 plants probably lose 8-10 buds a day. Instead I have approximately 20 peppers that haven't dropped and 14 of those come from 2 plants, the rest only have 1 or 2 each. the plants look healthy otherwise. They are tall, the leaves are nice and green, they are constantly producing new buds despite the fact that most of them never become peppers, and they are otherwise healthy. Maybe this is normal but I feel I am losing far more than I should as many of these bud, bloom, and then drop the flowers and have the little pepper nub that ultimately ends up dying when it could easily grow into a pepper!
 
thank you for the help!
 
I'm assuming you're growing in containers with soil - I would say your roots are getting too hot. I have a plant in a black bucket and the root temperature hit 100 when it was 90 ambient.
 
How big are your pots? If they're small then potting into larger pots gives more soil to slow the heat absorption. Alternatively, wrap your pots in tin foil to reflect the sun and stop the pot from heating. It's not too hot for the plant, just the roots.
 
Siv said:
I'm assuming you're growing in containers with soil - I would say your roots are getting too hot. I have a plant in a black bucket and the root temperature hit 100 when it was 90 ambient.
 
How big are your pots? If they're small then potting into larger pots gives more soil to slow the heat absorption. Alternatively, wrap your pots in tin foil to reflect the sun and stop the pot from heating. It's not too hot for the plant, just the roots.
Click to expand...
They are in pots. The pots are light colored and about a 10 gallon container size. I have felt the soil before around the edges of the pots and they have always felt mildly warm and damp to me but not 100 degrees hot. I will try the foil thing. Will double layering the pots help? like stick this bucket inside another one as "insulation" or would that be worse?
 
How are you watering them?  Bottom up with a tray or self-watering bucket may help.  The intense heat will suck up the soil moisture within a day.  Where I am, we need to fill the watering buckets, trays, or otherwise water every other day right now.  When monsoon season starts (next week), everything will change.  This approach has helped with my plants, but YMMV.  Good Luck!
 
Chorizo857_62J said:
How are you watering them?  Bottom up with a tray or self-watering bucket may help.  The intense heat will suck up the soil moisture within a day.  Where I am, we need to fill the watering buckets, trays, or otherwise water every other day right now.  When monsoon season starts (next week), everything will change.  This approach has helped with my plants, but YMMV.  Good Luck!
Click to expand...
My pots are too large to put in a water tray so I've been watering from the top. I water then a little at night since it's still warm and then a lot in the morning to get through the day. The leaves look healthy and never appear to be wilting. All buds look healthy up until the day they fall off in which they slightly yellow occasionally but usually they don't even do that. They usually are still green and the lightest tap of the finger breaks them off. I thought they were getting plenty of water and I don't want the internal roots to be too wet and mold but maybe they are sacrificing their fruit in order to water the leaves?
 
Flower drop probable causes:
 
1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low <65F or too high >85F
3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.
 
 
willard3 said:
Flower drop probable causes:
 
1. Day temp too high >95F
2. Night temp too low <65F or too high >85F
3. Too much nitrogen fertilizer
4. Too much water
5. Low light levels (reduces fertility).
6. Very low humidity (reduces fertility)
7. Poor air circulation (air circulation contributes to pollination).
8. Lack of pollinating insects.
9. Size of pot
10. Too much mineral in feedwater.
11. Too much grower attention/anxiety.
 
Click to expand...
I have seen this before but none of them seem applicable. The closest would be high temperatures but it really hasn't been that high for more than like one day every other week max. Or too much water might be the other cause but the leaves looks fine and healthy. Would the leaves look good and the flowers still drop with too much water? I'm afraid with the heat to not water them for too long though and the soil usually feels cool and damp but not soaking
 
We had a very dry but hot, low humidity May in N. FL.  Plants did fine, and set several pods, now ripening.  Now we are in the rainy season, and some plants are seeing some leaf spot/curl, and flower drop, others are hanging in there.  Once we get a week or two of solid rain, it can get worse. That has been what I have seen in the past years.  If we get a hurricane with 10+ inches of rain, they go in the garage for a few days.  Mine are all well-drained, but there is only so much you can do.  Wife loves it when there are 30+ 5-gal buckets in the garage where her car is supposed to go. 
 
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