Mini indoor, revised

Hi,
 
Some may recall the first ever kind of successful indoor grow I made (the glog is on this forum). It was less succesful because chinense like humidity and it took some time before I understood that. With two 10l "hempy buckets" they had too much room to grow and my 80*80*160cm grow tent with a vertical HPS turned into a jungle. Some fruits were however produced.
--
 
In this edition I'm running the same 80*80*160cm tent, plus a 60*60*140cm tent.
The larger tent has two 5l buckets (vermiculite and perlite) and two baccatums: Aji mango and aji pineapple;
the smaller tent has a clay pot with soil and a yellow rocoto plant. There is no HPS light to start with, instead there's a 50w Growking LED and a supplemental G4 (2,6W 6000k and E27 (10W 6000K) in the larger tent and an Airam mostly white LED E27 (10W 4000k) and a 7W blue and red E14 light in the smaller tent.
The inline fans are on top of the tents now, not inside, for more plant space.
 
 
The ajis initially grew much faster (in soil in a sunny window) than the Rocoto but were catacked at an early stage and lost about 50% of their leaves. They did recover but by then the rocoto had gained steam.
 
The rocoto gets ph-adjusted water and the ajis a mixture of about equal amounts of Floramicro and Floramato.
 
Today:
As it stands the ajis have been their tent for a month now and they are looking a little weird (They were straighter and with less four/two-pair leaf nodes that look a little like heads). Had to get support for them to try and grow straight as they were turning into hunchbacks.
 
The rocoto plant is looking pretty healthy so far.
 
--
 
As the indoor humidity drops with the onset of later autumn and winter I will run a humidifier in the room where the tents are (my bedroom - small apartment). If they get to the fruiting stage I shall introduce the 250W HPS into the larger tent with the ajis.
 
 
 

 

[CaneDog]

You're having a challenging grow, but it's great to see you managing it well and producing good peppers.  My experience has been that certain Aji's pods do lose their firm waxiness sooner than other varieties - I really noticed that with some Aji Limon recently, but I haven't grown those varieties consistently enough that I'm drawing from any great sampling.
 
Really interesting about the micro-climates of your rocoto.  Sure, good air circulation is important, but your plants seem to be pretty demanding about their conditions! Great looking dark green/purple colors in the photo.
 
The other thing I notice on the Aji is the slight rippling of the leaves and cupping near the stems, which could indicate some heat and/or water stress.  I've seen that lead to marginal chlorosis and necrosis before, but the MC on you Aji looks out of proportion to the minor apparent stress symptoms.  It just seems like something's going on there, where viral or deficiency, but if deficiency what's the cause? I think your doing the right thing in considering a possible deficiency - because if its virus there's really not much you can do but ride it out for a period of production before you shut down and sanitize. The other thing I might look at is soil - pH, salts, moisture retention, etc.  You've got a tough one, but at least your plants are still performing!

 

[stc3248]

Something so cool about growing indoors...hope you figure out your leaf issue.

 

[chelicerae]

2018-12-29:
 
Small pictureless update.
 
Thanks for your replies! PaulG: the spots that look a bit like bacterial spot are on the occasional older leaf. The new dead spots are only on the aji pineapple and only on newer leaves.
 
Cane: Thanks for the feedback, from this and your glog I feel a bit like Ogg the caveman grow green tings but yeah, haha, the plants are thankfully producing even if they are looking a bit iffy. The aji pineapple is doing the curled leaves thing and was doing it prior to being subjected to the HID, see one of the earliest shots. The aji mango hasn't been doing that from what I can tell. pH and salt and moisture retention are still relevant for perlite+vermiculite I suppose? I've upped the nutrients, that is more of each in same amount of ph-adjusted water, "EC 2,1" ratios as per the Floramato bottle in the recent week.
(The chinense in the last grow grew with the same nutrients in the same substrate albeit 10l buckets and HID from the start and they turned the tent into a rainforest and I routinely had to remove green fingers from between the cage mesh around the HID and I was kind of expecting that now too to a perhaps sane degree since 5L buckets instead...but one is spindly and not reaching the cage but can't complain as it is producing (mango) and the other seems like it wants to be a lawn substitute. It is too producing however.)
 
Taste report: Tried half a pineapple and didn't get a sense of taste before two seconds went by and the rather high heat hit.
Tried a mango side scraped free and it has a sweet taste..I can't desribe it as anything else than a sweeter-than-normal bellpepper. Neither has the "vicious vegetable"smell&taste of cayenne and the chinense I grew last time. There was this youtube clip of two guys blind-testing the same hot pepper grown in soil and hydro that I cannot for the life of me find again, they declared nothing with exclamation marks but the impression was that the soilers tasted distinctly more. There are contradictionary videos and I suppose the subject is a bit of a dead horse here : ) but I can't get that video out of my head. The earth-grown rocoto is going to be an interesting comparison.
 
Speaking of rocoto: I grew a bit tired of the status quo (eight fruits all on two spindly branches toward the rear) and wrestled with it to get it turned around. The fruits are now facing the tent flap and the fan is in a different position. I noted a nice and sweet-smelling nectar (I suppose) from the flowers when using my index finger instead of a cotton top to quickly stir the pretty flowers, haven't noticed in any of the other species and plants. Some of the older leaves on the Rocoto are pretty full of light grey and dead holes with a kind of shiny rim. Whatever bacterial/viral that is going on is omnipresent and looking at photos from last time reveal no such thing, only aphids, so once these have produced for a while I'll nuke the facilities. (Overall all three plants are looking more healthy than unhealthy though, especially the Rocoto. Most leaves are OK on all three)
 
 
 
 
 

 

[PaulG]

2018-12-29:
 
Thanks for your replies! PaulG: the spots that look a bit like bacterial spot are on the occasional older leaf. The new dead spots are only on the aji pineapple and only on newer leaves.
 
 There was this youtube clip of two guys blind-testing the same hot pepper grown in soil and hydro that I cannot for the life of me find again, they declared nothing with exclamation marks but the impression was that the soilers tasted distinctly more. There are contradictionary videos and I suppose the subject is a bit of a dead horse here : ) but I can't get that video out of my head. The earth-grown rocoto is going to be an interesting comparison.
 
Some of the older leaves on the Rocoto are pretty full of light grey and dead holes with a kind of shiny rim. 

Hey, David!  As for the older leaves with brown spots,
I would just cut them off unless the spots don't appear
to be spreading. I may be crazy  but whenever leaves
look funky, I just get rid of them.  to my way of thinking,
a diseased leaf isn't really doing the job for the plant,
and it's better to just be rid of it and the possibility of
the disease spreading. 
 
And as for the hydro vs. soil controversy, I know hydro is
an awesome way to grow, especially indoors.  However,
hydro cannot possibly produce the terroir (the characteristic
taste and flavor imparted to a food or wine by the environment
in which it is produced) of a soil-grown plant. Neither good or
bad, but the subtleties of the sensory experience must be 
there in the soil with all its myriad species of bacteria, fungus, 
mycorhizae and unique micro nutrients, IMHO.
 
Of course my palate is so unrefined those subtleties are
lost on me   
 
Good luck getting your leaf problems under control!

 

[chelicerae]

Hey, David!  As for the older leaves with brown spots,
I would just cut them off unless the spots don't appear
to be spreading. I may be crazy  but whenever leaves
look funky, I just get rid of them.  to my way of thinking,
a diseased leaf isn't really doing the job for the plant,
and it's better to just be rid of it and the possibility of
the disease spreading. 
 
And as for the hydro vs. soil controversy, I know hydro is
an awesome way to grow, especially indoors.  However,
hydro cannot possibly produce the terroir (the characteristic
taste and flavor imparted to a food or wine by the environment
in which it is produced) of a soil-grown plant. Neither good or
bad, but the subtleties of the sensory experience must be 
there in the soil with all its myriad species of bacteria, fungus, 
mycorhizae and unique micro nutrients, IMHO.
 
Of course my palate is so unrefined those subtleties are
lost on me   
 
Good luck getting your leaf problems under control!

 
Many thanks for your reply.
 
Have intermittently been removing obvious dying leaves but shall take your advice and be more prudent when assessing.
 
You are probably rather correct in that the myriad of things in soil will have subtle effects on the whole plant and likely a bit of the taste too. I wish my palate was more refined because I have been unable to isolate the typical "chinense" taste, to me they taste more or less like cayenne, except that the 7 pot brain strain made my eyes water when smelling and the Jolokia has a floral kind of smell; these aji were supposed to taste quite a bit ..like apple skin someone said but to me the mango tastes like what the "Sweet pepper" of the supermarket should taste like (that one tastes like naught).
 
I think next grow, if there shall be a such which I believe there shall, will contain Trinidad Perfume and perhaps Suave Orange.
 
Oh, I also ground some coarse powder up with a mortar and pestle technique Peter here on the forum shows on his youtube channel, worked very well! (And the one pepper that wasn't completely dried was like trying to crush a sock)


 

 

[PaulG]

Many thanks for your reply   My pleasure, Steve.
 
Oh, I also ground some coarse powder up with a mortar and pestle technique Peter here on the forum shows on his youtube channel, worked very well! (And the one pepper that wasn't completely dried was like trying to crush a sock) That made me laugh 

I need to check out that video. I've thought about the mortar
and pestle idea. Seems like grinding a dry pod for immediate
use might preserve the flavor better than grinding a whole jar
at a time, and then letting it sit.  I keep them in a dark, cool
closet in the garage, but over the years, the powders seem
to change a bit, both color (lighter) ands flavor/heat
(more mellow). I think

 

[chelicerae]

2019-01-26:
 
'I aten't dead yet'
 
Production: ~15 mature aji fruits per week, one here another there during the week then a fistful on a saturday:

 
5 mature rocoto fruits so far, had the first mature a couple of weeks back:


 
After reading on fatalii's page that Yes rocoto plants can stand cool evenings and nights..they also like hot days so I switched tents, the Roc is now alone in the 80*80cm tent with the HPS. It has responded by looking guardedly alert and lots of new flowers are in the early stages. Less humidity, greater temp variations, different kind of light, maybe I can get more than 8 fruits from it : )


 
 
The aji plants are somewhat crowded together in the 60*60cm one. Whatever leaf disaease they have (curled leaves, dead spots, frayed edges) they haven't claimed the plants yet so to speak.

 
 
-Will evaluate the HPS effect on the Rocoto plant and eventually, at least when spring comes (as the apartment will grow a bit too hot for HIDs), switch to

 
 
SMD 2835 chips on it..'150W' draws ~45W. It's obviously for a hanging vertical configuration and a 360 degree light arc. Last year the chinense plants in their 10l buckets tried their best to smother the mesh around the HID...this year no plant has even reached it (have lowered it gradually and this would hang somewhere near the Roc). It's available in E45 socket as well but only operable without a ballast according to the seller..so since I wasn't going to start snipping cables again I bought the e27 version. This socket, meant for terrariums and the like, can be hung and takes the stress off the cable; though the rather heavy lamp still hangs only by the socket.
 
 
Taste
-Aji pineapple fruit are instant-heat and these ones at least with no perceivable taste
 
-Aji mango are not as hot and quite sweet and pleasant
 
-Rocoto yellow tastes a bit like the store bought common bell peppers here though subtly different, quite good; the heat is just perfect. Not as instant as the Aji pineapple and frankly not quite as hot, just very nice as a topping on a pizza and in a salsa. As mentioned in my status I thought I had a somewhat funny mental glitch in that I ate the entire roc fruit, like you would another hot pepper but not a store bought bell pepper. Well, the core tastes like wood and earth so I'll avoid that bit in the future.
 
Oh, and the aji flakes/powder I mortared and pestled for my mother was appreciated.
 
 

 

[Ghost Pepper Revolution]

Thats a sick looking led bulb, me likey lol

 

[CaneDog]

Glad to hear you 'aten't dead yet' chelicerae and it looks like your plants are similarly enjoying good health!  The color coming off the pods in your flash shots is really something.  Sounds like you're narrowing in on the right mix to get some good production out of the rocoto, so I'm expecting big things out of that plant soon!

 

[chelicerae]

Thanks for your replies! Yes  GPR, I look forward to trying the "cone" shaped LED later on. It sure seems very bright.
 
CaneDog: It's a reference to what Granny Weatherwax wrote once on a note when her mind was tagging along some animal and her body was laying on her bed (the Discworld). And thanks, yeah, bright sunny colors for sure. I watered with PH-adjusted water only for most of two weeks and they seemed a little better of for it. Now it's 5ml/5ml of floramato and floramicro in 5l of ph-adjusted water for the aji and that split evenly with ph-adjusted water for the Roc. Should be easy to see if it keeps dropping most flowers like in the other tent or if this set of changed parameters was for the better. It seemed to like the fans anyways so the current one is albeit constant more powerful than priors. It's a weird plant and I've no doubt it would grow into a monster had I set it in a 10l hydro bucket.
 
 

 

[CaneDog]

Aha!  I felt certain it was a reference to something, but I didn't know to what.
 
I'll be looking forward to news of how the rocoto is doing under the new parameters. Good luck with that!  I've never grown a rocoto through fruiting indoors before, but I think I'll undertake that sometime soon.  I'm glad to be able to follow your grow in advance of doing so.  I'm thinking a fairly compact rocoto would be a good idea, perhaps CAP1242.

 

[chelicerae]

Hey!
 
CAP1242 looks very cute : )
 
As for mine..well, it took to the HPS 250W and increased temp difference between day and night with a practiced calm and for a month kept the steady pace of four-five fruits growing at once, so I switched the HPS for the cone led, which hangs lower and closer to the plant. It gets more sun hours too but I suspect something else is missing. ("Summer outdoors" is a given but in the end that's a set of parameters)
 
It's doing a whole lot better than the aji mango plant however, for it has perhaps 13 leaves left but around 20 green fruits : / I think the move to the smaller tent is what killed it for I cheaped out on the channel fan there and as such cannot keep it on at night and the vast majority of nights have been without the tent flap open (just the intake air mesh) so the rh% at 20C has climbed up to 60% most nights... and "

This disease can defoliate plants during wet weather."
 

https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/bacterial-leaf-spot-pepper-vegetables
 
is what I believe I'm now seeing. (Well it isn't raining hard obviously but the rh is up..whether that is what the article is referring to as "wet" might be debatable). The pineapple isn't doing a whole lot better.
 
I went to the local supermarket to get bleach but they'd replaced that "environmentally unfriendly product" by something else, so the 1/9 formula given in the article above isn't the one I'l choose; I believe I'll just soak any new seeds in chamomille tea overnight. I don't know whether cleaning everything incl. tent interiors with soap will do it.
 
Anyway, I've learnt some of the characteristics of C baccatum (pollinate and grow fruit no matter what compared to my one Roc plant and past Chinenses..much like the annuums I've tried.) and have gotten a small bag of fruits in the freezer. Somewhat interestingly I haven't seen much of a defect on any baccatum fruit but all rocoto fruits have light tan slashes.
 
--
On the somewhat upper side I've gotten a clone going of some (other) sort of superhot chinense from a plant my father has kept in his kitchen under artificial lighting for a couple of years. He can't seem to make it produce fruit (without upping the rh I'd say it's very hard with a chinense indoors in Sweden during winter) so I gave him the jwala, if that annuum survives until summer it might do well in a window. I hope so, and I hope my clone (residing in a corner of the larger telt with the roc) doesn't catch a disease and die. It has had some issue from the start where light tan patches appear on elsewise healthy leaves and these tan patches are actually dry and crunchy and that hasn't been the case with any weird patches of the current generation, Ajis or roc. It seems to like the cone LED however (the light looks more pinkish-red than that from the "75w" Growking square one)
 
 
 

 

[CaneDog]

Yep, I like the CAP1242. 
 
Instead of bleach, H2O2 would be an option.  I use it almost always as a soak prior to germinating seeds and if I'm concerned about contamination, I'll do a brief soak at a higher concentration for 15 - 30 minutes followed by the longer soak for overnight up to 24 hours.  The stronger concentration might be 3% H2O2 diluted 50/50 with H2O (I've even used full 3% for a short time without ill-effect), diluted down to 0.75% 1:3 ratio after the brief soak.  Normal soaking for me is between 0.15% and 0.75% H2O2 (1:19 - 1:3) for 8 - 24 hours, depending on whether I'm striving for a level of anti-contamination effect or, such as with my own seed, just breakdown of the seed coating and higher levels of oxygenation.  BTW, I've heard of people spraying foliage with diluted H2O2 solutions to retard bacterial and fungus infections of tomatoes and peppers with positive results, just being sure to not go too concentrated and not leaving them in the sun or under lights until dry again.  I do wonder whether you have BLS versus just more normal and benign indoor issues that result in minor leaf necrosis, though, and hope the latter is the case.
 
I'm glad to be following your work with the indoor rocoto - I may even decide to start a CAP1242 and try growing it indoors over the summer.  Sounds like other cool things are in the works for you with the cutting and the new super-hot challenge too.
CD
 
 

 

[chelicerae]

Thanks for your input Canedog. I actually have some 3% H202 for the humidifier so I might go that route. I wouldn't call whatever is ailing the mango "benign" and with the same feed and tents and partial lighting and ventilation I had no leaf issues with the chinense I grew last year..but that was only the first so perhaps something has gone wrong this time(that isn't bacteriae). I shall nevertheless try to clean everything when I vacate the aji tent and mull over whether to let the Roc continue to live for another year.

 

[PaulG]

Good luck getting a handle on the leaf spotting, David.
 
It can be frustrating when things seem to go sideways,
and we can't figure it out. 
 
 "tan patches are actually dry and crunchy​" - sounds like
a little leaf burn or scald from the lights. Did you have
the same light on it last season?

 

[chelicerae]

Hey Paul,
 
Thanks for your reply. This clone had this issue with some leaves on the motherplant as well, but overall it seems pretty hale so far, see the shots. I've only had it for around two months, motherplant stands under a HID.
 
Here are (pinkish) shots of the unknown hot clone as well as a couple of mango leaf closeups.
 





 

 

[PaulG]

The leaves you show are a bit ugly,
but the plants look healthy.

The white stuff looks like it is just
tricomes, a natural growth and nothing
much to worry about.

The top picture looks like a little heat burn.

If the leaves are bothersome, just remove
them little by little.

 

[chelicerae]

Hey all,
 
to conclude this thread, this is how it went:
 
A month ago or two I harvested the last fruits from the aji plants. The move into a smaller tent wasn't productive for the mango, which kept losing leaves. The pineapple wasn't so afflicted however it always grew a little stunted and frankly while it produced continually and the fruits were pretty they didn't taste a whole lot and their heat is instant and on the tongue.
 
Having watched this place occasionally I know lots more time and dedication needs to go in, together with vastly larger pots / canisters / buckets / root spaces. I'm not sure I can prune something with 20l of root medium enough to make it tent-compatible, though.
 
The rocoto was doing as it has in its little pot- producing a fruit every now and then, dropping most flowers (I don't get what makes these tick after having tried different temps, lights and levels of humidity). I couldn't axe it even when it was hogging almost all the light in the larger tent so I gave it to a colleague who owns a house and we'll see how long it survives outdoors now during spring and hopefully summer. Early bumblebees seem to like it and the colleague has said he is going to replant it in a larger container than the little pot. We'll see if it makes it that far (nights currently go down to around 4C, days up to 15C, they are supposedly okay with slightly cooler temps but perhaps not to these levels..anyways it was this or the axe)

 

 
To end it on a slightly more positive note I quite like the yellow rocoto fruits, perfect amount of heat and quite a nice taste and not a whole lot of seeds. Good in pasta sauces.
 
The aji mango + pineapple dry easily and I've ground most of them into a coarse powder that works pretty well on things.
 
(Am now progressing pot sizes rather than one big jump to a 5l hydro bucket now but I think the majority will be in soil, i.e 2/3..the third is the unknown chinense clone from my father's plant which seems to be doing rather well at the moment)
 

 

[podz]

+4 celcius at night is no problem at all for a rocoto, an established plant can even survive several hours of freezing temperatures. Mine are already outside permanently now and I live in Helsinki.
 
If you want several hundred flowers at the same time, ensure that they are already well forked and outside while nighttime temps are still hovering around 10-12 celcius for a week or two. That combined with some sunny days and the bees will definitely visit. 50 pods is about what you should be seeing on a first year plant, if it has a large enough pot.
 
One thing that I have noticed is that they are root-sensitive - if their roots circle in a pot, even once, they seem to completely stop growing. I grew mine outdoors in airpots last summer and they grew like crazy until they set fruit.