• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

I believe I have a problem

I think I have some type of virus. Here's a pic of one effected leaf. I originally thought the leaves were all damaged from the hail storm but I pulled those long ago. I've contacted my local county extension to see if they can help. I'm also seeing some leaf curl.

Here's a photo of an infected leaf.

IMG_4865cre.jpg


What's got me really puzzled is the first sign is the curling and disappearance of the edge of the leaf on the left side of the stem. Every leaf that is effected starts that way.

Anybody ever deal with something similar?
 
I'm hoping you get an answer to this.. My Hab leaves are looking the same way... We've had some pretty cool nights and more rain than we wanted....
 
We've had an ark's worth of rain in the past couple of weeks too bd'65 and I've wondered if that has had anything to do with it. The plant effected the worst had a couple of inches of standing water in it a few days ago. I've since added a few holes along the bottom to remedy that.

Good luck to you.
 
Almost everyone of my plants had that same look to them for a few weeks and a few still do. I think it is too much water. Mine appeared after I watered them one evening and then it rained for the next 3 days. Once the plants had time to dry out the new growth all looks fine. They are a little pale but I will be hitting the with Epson Salt this week end if it stays dry enough.
 
Dont broad mites just shrivel up the leaves? With those spots, I say bacterial/fungal, especially after huge rains. (Standing water in the pot, beads of water resting on the leaves, splashed up soil on the leaves.) Separate plant, put in a sunny spot with air circulation, remove top inch of soil and replace with fresh soil. Then spray with a fungicide.
 
The excess water may have something to do with the spots but the mechanical damage to the leaves is caused by mites. I took a few leaves and put them under the microscope and you can see the little bastards.

I took some photos using the 'scope and will see if any of them turned out and post them here. Be back soon.

HawaiiAl your link doesn't work.
 
Time to hold some horses it seems. None of the microscope shots came out worth a dang. What I believe I found were eggs, no larvae or adults. But I was able to photograph some good signs that spider mites may be the culprit.

Here is some webbing I found under one leaf....

IMG_4890cre.jpg


and what appears to be an egg sac. The darker chunk is dirt. If you look closely along the vein just to the right of the "egg sac" there are a couple of smaller objects. Under the scope they appear to be either single eggs or possible spider mite larvae. The slightly larger object that looks like a grain of rice to the far right looks like the remains of what ever these things pupate in.

Here's a larger pic of the "egg sac" taken through the eyepiece of the microscope. Best photo was able to get--for now.

IMG_4887cre.jpg


I'm pretty much guessing on this stuff gang, if anyone can help ID this stuff I would sincerely appreciate it. Thanks.
 
I'm with you Patrick...I'm thinking spider mites from your "evidence"....

zap them my man...
 
Hello Patrick,
I'll try to contact an expert agronomist member of my Brazilian forum and show off your images.
I'm not promising but I will try :)
 
Is that AJ? Cool! Yep, it's the end of days for any creepy crawlies.

SS-- I picked up a bottle of Ortho Max Lawn and Garden Insect Killer. The killing ingredient is bifenthrin. It isn't OMRI listed and that bothers me a bit. Just not enough not to use it. One of the main reasons I got it is bifenthrin has the longest residual termiticide currently registered on the market today. I don't want to have to go back and respray ever four or five days like I've had to with safer soaps and the like. It does have a waiting period of seven days from the last use to harvesting. I have no problem doing that.

I fought aphids last year and I finally just donated the three plants I couldn't get them off of so they would leave the rest alone. I don't plan on doing that this year. If the aphids want some pepper plants to eat they can go plant their own.

Brito--Thank you for the offer of help, I really appreciate the effort. If I happen to find out what they are I will post it here.

I took a few leaves up to the local county extension and talked with a couple of master gardeners. Not much help I'm afraid. There wasn't any bugs/larvae/eggs on the leaves I took but she was able to offer some suggestions based on the damage they're causing on the leaves. The larvae are small enough that they cannot chew through a leaf. She also said to look for the culprits at night.

I will keep this thread updated with anything new I can find. Thanks for everyone's help.
 
I took the pictures to our cooperative Extension Service office, He gave me a print out didn't have any idea what it was. This From the print out The Insect most commonly found on peppers are aphids,mites white flies, thrips leaf miners, and pepper weevil. All of them can be controlled to some degree with Insecticides The most common diseases found on peppers are mosaic, bacterial leaf spot Cerospora leaf spot, anthac-nose, late blight,blossom end rod and sun scald. The most common disease problem is mosaic (one or more virus diseases that cause green and yellow motting and distorted leaves) to control mosaics,insect pests-especially aphids-must be controlled, because they transmit the disease.
 
Thanks for the work HawaiiAl.

Last night I spent a couple of hours trimming the damaged parts of leaves with a pair of kitchen shears. Only way to know if any damage I come across is old or new. I checked this morning and it appears that my spraying didn't get them all but there is much less of it. I'll wait a couple more days and do it again. I am NOT giving up on killing these SOB's.

Shouldn't I be able to find adults? Are they big enough to see with the naked eye? So far I haven't found a single one, just some eggs or possibly young larvae.
 
Back
Top