Something nasty has got to my Thai Hot Pepper, please help!

[MAFWIZ]

Hey guys, I have a little Thai Hot Pepper I got from Home Depot a month or two ago. It's been doing fine in a pot outside - getting nibbled on by critters a bit, but that comes with the territory. Yesterday though, about half the leaves developed a nasty looking injury or illness, it almost looks like a worm burrowed through the interior of the leaves. There are large paths of discoloration in a worm-like pattern, and some black areas. My phones camera has a hard time focusing up close, so here are a few pics, hopefully you guys can make out whats going on here.

I've quarantined the plant away from the other peppers. Should I remove the affected leaves? It is close to half of the poor little guys leaves that are affected. I sprayed a foliar spray with a light nutrient formula, epsom salt, and a good kick of lime juice, but I have no idea if that's going to help at all.

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[Indiana_Jesse]

Yup, upon first glimpse it looks like a leaf miner. They mostly just cause aesthetic damage and each should only affect the leaf they are already mining through. Not much you can do except remove the affected leaves. If it was a non-vegetable/fruit you could use a systemic.

By the way, a leaf miner is usually the larvae of a very small moth, but there are many different species of leaf miners, and not all are moths (Lepidoptera).

 

[Flamecycle]

I agree with Indiana_Jesse. I am no expert by any means, but I had a leaf miner problem last year in some of my plants and it looked a lot like that.

If you look at the underside of the leaves you can often find the little dark colored worm things in the leaves (usually not in the leaves that are really damaged already, they seem to move on to fresh leaves pretty frequently so you will often find them in leaves that are first showing signs of the little worm pattern). I would suggest removing the affected leaves, and trying to find the leaves where they are currently residing and remove those and kill the little buggers by smashing them with your fingers. They didnt seem to do too much damage to my plants growth or pepper production, but f**k those things, they need to die.

 

[MAFWIZ]

Thanks guys, I'm on it.

 

[hooda]

Yeah I've had that happen to my Thai that I bought last fall. I just remove the damaged leaves and dispose of them away from the plant, better yet desroyed. Good luck.