pics Mite damage on my OW plants...UPDATE: Cayenne making miraculous recovery (pics inside)

[sreinhard88]

wait, you pruned off the uneffected growth?
 
you cannot rule out mites. not untill you check them at a proper magnification.
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QF0A1Y/ref=ox_ya_os_product_refresh_T1
 
i use that to identify mites personally. i can image them, and email photos if i need to for proper confirmation. if you are not interested in taking photos, look for jewlers loops.
i think you need like 12x to 24x magnification at least.
 
the 2,4-d hypothesis is a poor one given that only the newest growth is effected. its well known that mites will attack the newest growth first given that its the softest and newest parts of the leaf tissue they go after. only when you have a full blown infestation will you see damage all all of the plant. 
 
do you have ANY other plants in the area? any flowers, toms, any dicot should be veunerable to 2,4-d.  pesticide drift will not just sneak into your yard, and target one or two plants.
ask your neighbors if they sprayed. do you live close to any municipally maintained medians or grassy areas? does the city or state maintain any grassy right of way near you?
sometimes they spray  from vehicles into roadside ditches etc to kill trees etc.
 
however, the above folks are usually very professional, and rarely atomize 2,4-d. its usually the idiot homeowners that dont want dandelions in their front yard that do this.  

Man I wish I had money for something like that, certainly would have come in handy, do I absolutely need a microscope to see them?.  I didn't prune off the unaffected growth, only the growth that was damaged.  Unfortunately this meant a lot of growth had to be trimmed off entirely. There is a smalle bed of wildflower type plants that seem to be doing just fine.  The rose bush on the hill doesn't appear to have changed and the only other plants in the area are my peppers.  As far as municpally maintaiend areas, within a 1.5 mile radius of me are 3 public schools and a small park, as Chase said many public schools in Maryland spray during the summer.  Regardless I have yet to make an official diagnosis, but I figure once I see how the new growth reacts when it comes in I can reasses for the cause.
 

 
     2,4-d tends to only affect new growth. It is localized to areas of new growth by the plant's vascular system. Also, being a growth regulator, it is expected that it will only show affects in areas of cell division and differentiation.
     Atomization of these chemicals is almost never the issue with drift. 2,4-d has a high vapor pressure and volatilizes very easily. It is these vapors that can travel long distances still affect plants.
     I'm not sure why some plants are more susceptible to damage over others, but that is the case. Last year the only plants on my property that showed any damage were my peppers. This year the pepper damage was worse, and I also saw damage on my tomatoes. Maybe some plants have the ability to metabolize these chemicals, or maybe some are more impervious than others. I dunno. Either way, it is very unlikely to see uniform damage on all plants in an area. 
     Having said that, you are correct that the best course of action would be to first determine whether mites are present and go from there. If broad mites are the cause, simply pinching off the affected growth probably won't be enough to stop an infestation. Plus, confirming the presence of mites will no doubt be much more difficult if all the heavily infested shoots have already been disposed of. 

I still have all the pruned growth in the trash can, but without the proper magnification in the first place I'm not sure it's worth digging through to re-examine lol!  Are there any other methods for checking for broad mites?

 

[Hybrid Mode 01]

Are there any other methods for checking for broad mites?

 
     Sure! You don't need a microscope or a loupe or any of that stuff. Just call your county extension agent and ask if they or any of their cohorts do plant disease diagnostics. I did that last year (after a lot of pointless worrying about mites, lol). All I had to do was overnight a few labeled plant samples to the university. (Waaaaay cheaper than buying a microscope!) He didn't find any mites, any mite eggs or any mite damage.
     So I just pinched off all the affected shoots (drastic pruning is not necessary) and let the plants recover on their own. He also told me that virtually every time a gardener asks about plants presenting these symptoms, it's not mites. Just herbicide drift.

 

[queequeg152]

atomization has everything to do with vaporization lol. especially with relatively non volatile chemicals. otherwise we would just fire jellybean sized globs of fuel into engines.

you are supposed to A: use the non volatile products(solids too), or B: use a spray cone, or C: use a very low pressure and very"globby" nozzle and spray in the evening when heat and wind are at a minimum.

forgive my suspecion, but assuming what you have is actually 2,4-d damage, which i am not questioning, i would bet you a ham sandwich its not coming from some school 1 mile away as you noted above. i bet its from a homeowner far closer to yourself.

i see your point about the newest growth being effected only, in these far far below lethal doses.
i disagree tho, that the vapors are traveling form far away. this in my mind would only be the case in the most severe of miss applications, even then it would be contingent on so many environmental factors that it would not be a likely to occur over and over and over as you noted.

edit:


grow shops, if you have any near by, will have those magnifiers. might cost you an uncomfortable amount, but they are there if you need.

i would just get something cheap from amazon...there are bound to still observable mites. if not you have then confirmed the mites, then is likely the 2,4-d.

 

[Spicytigger]

On Exhibit A's picture ... those are hornworm eggs. Get rid of them as quick as you see them... The green ones are still embryos, if they are clear then they have hatched already so keep an eye out.

 

[sreinhard88]

atomization has everything to do with vaporization lol. especially with relatively non volatile chemicals. otherwise we would just fire jellybean sized globs of fuel into engines.

you are supposed to A: use the non volatile products(solids too), or B: use a spray cone, or C: use a very low pressure and very"globby" nozzle and spray in the evening when heat and wind are at a minimum.

forgive my suspecion, but assuming what you have is actually 2,4-d damage, which i am not questioning, i would bet you a ham sandwich its not coming from some school 1 mile away as you noted above. i bet its from a homeowner far closer to yourself.

i see your point about the newest growth being effected only, in these far far below lethal doses.
i disagree tho, that the vapors are traveling form far away. this in my mind would only be the case in the most severe of miss applications, even then it would be contingent on so many environmental factors that it would not be a likely to occur over and over and over as you noted.

edit:


grow shops, if you have any near by, will have those magnifiers. might cost you an uncomfortable amount, but they are there if you need.

i would just get something cheap from amazon...there are bound to still observable mites. if not you have then confirmed the mites, then is likely the 2,4-d.

Interesting, I'll have to research that (finally getting some use out of my tax dollars lol!)
 

On Exhibit A's picture ... those are hornworm eggs. Get rid of them as quick as you see them... The green ones are still embryos, if they are clear then they have hatched already so keep an eye out.

I figured that's what they were, both were destroyed after the picture was taken 

 

[MAFWIZ]

I've had somewhat similar issues on my overwinters only. In my experience the strange growth occurs when the plant goes back into a vegetation producing stage after the last fruit cycle of the year (most of my peppers can fruit 2-3 a year, and the lucky ones survive through the winter.) The strange growth lasts for a while, and then goes almost back to normal in the spring...but the overwinters never go all the way back to normal after the winter.
 
But...I also live literally next door to a high school, right next to a grass soccer field. Good chance if they spray anything its all over my yard. 

 

[sreinhard88]

Hello all, just figured I'd give y'all a quick update.  The other day at work I decided to pick up a bottle of fungicide/insecticide/miticide since the bottle I currently have is almost empty.  We didn't have the brand I usually use so I decided to go for a Bayer product (http://www.lowes.com/pd_316734-24182-706120_0__?Ntt=316734&UserSearch=316734&productId=3173217&rpp=32). So far I've applied this twice on each plant, but it's still too early to tell if it's working.  There is some new growth just beginning to set in, and that looks healthy, so that's good.  Guess that's it for now, I'll probably update this again when the new growth is more developed and I can see if it made a difference.

 

[sreinhard88]

Good news everyone! (Bonus points if you read that in prof. farnsworth's voice lol)
 
Just figured I would post a quick update to let you all know how the recovery process is going (a more detailed update can be found in my glog, which I will be updating shortly after this post.)  The Cayenne is making a fantastic recovery and already has several large pods hanging! 

The picture on the left is when I first realized the mite problem and created this thread on 7/24; the center picture is later that day after I trimmed off the damaged growth.  The picture on the right was taken today (8/10).  As you can see, the growth has come back in full and then some!
 

One of the pods on the Cayenne, the rest of them are roughly this long as well!
 
 
The Habanero is making a slower recovery, honestly at this point I'm not expecting any pods from it this year, but who knows, it just might surprise me.  For more pics of the Cayenne and some extra pod porn thrown in for good measure take a look at my glog.
 
EDIT: Here's the link to my newly-updated glog.  http://thehotpepper.com/topic/46421-captains-glog-stardate-81014-miraculous-recovery-for-the-cayenne-first-attempt-at-making-powder-and-more-warning-softcore-pod-porn-ahead/?p=977678