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Leaves "Wilt" When First Put Plant Outside...Why?

PeteyPepper

PeteyPepper

Maybe some of you experienced growers can shed some light on this one...

When I put a pepper plant outside for the first time in direct sunlight, after a few hours the leaves "wilt", lose their rigidness and become floppy like. When I bring the plant in, within a few hours it is back to normal. Strange...does this happen to anyone else???
 
I always start them off with shade and never give them much sunlight until the the 4th day. They might not like the combo of direct sun and wind right away either. Just the plants way of saying it's not happy. Eventually, they all like it outdoors.
 
It's called hardening off and has to be done gradually. You can keep them in the shade for the first couple of days or in direct sunlight for a short period of time - no more than a couple of hours at first. I have a place in the yard that starts in shade, gets direct light for a while, is shaded for a while then gets sun again before returning to shade. I actually let the plants outside the entire day and night last year, though the first couple of days I checked them from time to time.

Mike
 
mine did that yesterday...then i realized..i needed to water them...the cold frame was about 90 degrees and they wilted within 30 minutes of being outside, but after watering them...they popped back.
 
Shock - Your plants need to either be hardened off by increase spectrum inside with fan.
Or as said above place them in less sunlight and build them up to full spectrum.
You have to remember that your indoor grow will not have the smae spectrum of UV (very little UVC or UVA - how ever there is alittle UVB present in most indoor globes), which as we know will burn cells ( sunburnt skin ) Plants are no different and go into a deffensive mode, trying to reduce the exposure on the leaf!

Lack of water would have done it too ! lol
 
I have most of mine in a very large bay window that gets about 5 hours of direct sun. I think that I should have fewer problems with these plants as they have now adjusted to the sun as their light source...lol.

The few that I took outside were taken right from under the CFL's. They started to wilt within an hour of the direct sun. I think that it was shock and not watering as the soil was moist. I will "harden-off" these plants more gradually...
 
Hardening plants is very important for a hybrid grow (hydro/outdoor) !

Alot of air movment as well helps ! Just a pedstool fan on swing 24/7 ! Will allow for stem to harden and the plant produce the right hormones with in its cells to help fight environmental conditions like wind and gravity lol !

If plant fells stress through the potential of branch breaking it will stop growth and fix the problem...to put simply
 
The actual mechanism of wilting is normal for plants...whenever a plant starts to lose more water thru its leaves than it can take up from the roots, wilting occurs...the stomata in the leaves shut down to stop water loss...thus causing the wilting...

Last year, my plants were wilting very badly and I would water them...they popped right back up...then I got root rot and lost about 50-75 from overwatering...

Remember this...hot weather + too much water = root rot...

I pulled one of the plants up to make sure it was root rot and the bottom of the 5 gallon container was like wet mud but the top 2 or 3 inches of the soil was very dry....

this year, shade cloth is going to be my friend....
 
AlabamaJack said:
The actual mechanism of wilting is normal for plants...whenever a plant starts to lose more water thru its leaves than it can take up from the roots, wilting occurs...the stomata in the leaves shut down to stop water loss...thus causing the wilting...
Click to expand...

The wilting is not caused by the closing of the stomata. Technically, the closing of the stomata actually helps keep water in because less water is lost through transpiration. It is supposed to actually help a plant stop wilting, because each individual cell should swell up due to their being in a hypertonic environment (more water around cell than in the cell, so water enters through cell membrane).

The real reason for the wilting is that the plant is not adapted to taking in as much water through its roots to replenish the water lost through the leaves (transpiration). Indoors, plants do not transpire as much as outside so plants so not adapt inside.


Sorry AJ... but I had to:lol:
 
no problem, you said what I was trying to...
 
There is likely also a change in humidity and more cool air movement outside to dry out your plants. I usually harden off for wind, as much as for sun
 
Not sure the scientific reason why but some plants also wilt when they are growing rapidly. Tobacco is one of them and so are a couple types of tomatoes. One difference between that type of wilt and wilting from lack of water or not being use to the sun is only the leaves wilt, not the stem too.

Mike
 
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