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Save my jalapeno! :(

LancelBracken

LancelBracken

Hey :)

I have a very unwell jalapeno. Here he is, he is about 30cm/1 foot tall (my foot included as evidence : D
veryoddjalapenogrowth.jpg


He is 4 months old. He has been dropping leaves from the bottom up for quite some time now, and just keeps dropping more and more! The leaves look wilty, go yellow, and fall off.

I had him growing indoors under 600w MH but i have decided to put him outside seeing as it's spring now. He gets 50% strength seaweed fert every 2 weeks, epsom salt spray every 2 weeks, gets watered with enough to cause light run off 2-3 times weekly. He lives in cheap peat-based potting mix and perlite in a 15cm pot.

Here is a 'canopy' (haha, i use that term lightly!) macro
veryoddcjalapenoloseup.jpg


Here is what the stem looks like. You can see where the leaves have been dropping. There are new growth bud things there, but they haven't done anything in at least a month... maybe now that he's outside they will grow?
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/bracken2656/stemcloseup.jpg
 
I'm sorry I don't have the answer, but if you find out what's wrong please let us know. I have a habanero that is doing exactly the same thing. Except for the shape of the leaves, it looks identical to your plant.
 
Roots are weak (maybe because of overwatering or too ...ehh...dunno the word... sticky? thick? heavy? soil). I'd dig it out of the soil, throw all the rest soil from roots and plant it to 0,5 liter pot with light soil mixed with sand. Water with rooting hormone solution (dunno if you have one there). Better use a plastic bag to protect the rest of foliage from dropping during re-rooting. Daily removing the bag, spraying with water and after 15 min putting bag back to the crown will be good too.
Don't forget to throw the soil somewhere to prevent re-using it.
 
Hey Jah, thanks for the reply.
I happen to have another jalapeno which is similar size and has the same problems. After reading your post i thought i would investigate the roots!

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/bracken2656/jalapenoroots.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/bracken2656/jalapenorootsandplant.jpg

They look slightly off white, i had a tug at them and they don't appear rotten but i don't really know what i'm looking for, haha.

After this i washed the soil off the roots in rain water.
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/bracken2656/rootswashed.jpg

Then i (mostly as an experiment) gave the roots a good trim, leaving only the top 2inches remaining. I then potted it into fresh soil mixed with more perlite than usual, some egg shells, and some epsom salts. Not sure if it'll survive but i'm interested to see what happens with root trim + repotting.

Unfortunately i don't have any rooting stimulator here, but i'll get some and get to work on the main jalapeno after seeing what happens with the experiment :)
 
It could actually be any number of things. Too much notrogen will cause the yellow leaves, and lack of calcium will cause them to wilt and fall off. Could also be a pH issue with the soil. The roots on that plant look perfectly healthy other than it appears to be time to put it in a larger pot.
 
yeah, so you had 2 plants that way? try this with your other plant. leave the roots alone other than cleaning them off, repott to a bigger pot, use some NICER soil, still mix with like 1 part perlite, 1 part verm, what do the directions say on your nutes? what kind of nutes you using? you said you nute them every two weeks? usually the nutes will have directions for watering with every watering, weekly/biweekly, etc. less nutes more often is better. moving it in the sun was a good idea eggshells was a good idea, i'd leave the salt alone could be using too much possibly? just try to go back to the basics
 
Here is an update on the chilli in the first post.

He was potted up 3 weeks ago into a better soil mix than my cheap peat crap that i was using. Currently he is in 50% good quality soil mix, 30% coco, 10% vermiculite 10% perlite.

You can see there's a reasonable amount of new growth, and he hasn't dropped a new leaf. All leaves above the droopy ones at the bottom are new, they look much healthier and more like the leaves on my store-bought jalapeno seedlings.
jalapenorecovering.jpg


jalapenorecovering2.jpg



The one that i gave a root trim to and potted back into cheap soil is still alive, but is still unhappy and hasn't grown at all.
 
Yeah, the old saying..."peppers hate wet feet". :)

I know the troubles of it all....my 2yr old Fatali just literally dropped dead over night. My other plants given the exact same treatment are doing great, pretty damn odd.

Oh well.
 
QuadShotz said:
Yeah, the old saying..."peppers hate wet feet". :)
Click to expand...

I dispute that saying. Pretty much every single of my plants last season was grown in a so called water saving pot, where a small bit of soil is exposed to water like a wick system. My plants had no issues with this setup at all, and when I removed some of the plants from the pots, the roots had actually penetrated to the water storage area.

I think the saying relates to water pooling at the bottom combined with soil. This season I have a combination of water saving and non water saving pots, with the same potting mixture, will be interesting to see the difference in growth and fruiting.
 
Bottom watering is good.

I meant allowing them to be saturated . They hate that.

Unless it's hydro..that's a whole diff. beast. ;)
 
It probably went into shock from being exposed too quickly outdoors. It's pretty spindly, so it hasn't seen much wind in it's life. Lay off the ferts and water for a while. Only water it when the pot is dry (light weight) and the leaves wilt a little. I wouldn't give it any more ferts for at least a month. It will grow on it's own if you leave it alone for a while.
 
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