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health What is wrong with this pepper?!??!! (pic)

Check out this sickly, unhealthy looking pepper, with yellow-green leaves, and severe leaf curl vertically (almost looking like a closed venus fly trap on some of the leaves). Any idea what would cause this or how to fix it? Ths is a Burpee Mariachi, 4 of my 5 look just like this. The problem has actually been developing for a month - it's not new / sudden. Thoughts?

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what kinda of potting mix did you put them in? what and how often are you watering /giving nutes etc.. need to know more about the conditions, looks like it could be fert burn if you are using a mix with slow release ferts ie: says "feeds for "X"months" on label, I had a similar prob using cheapo wal-mart mix "expert gardener" brand soil , expert my ass lol that crap even had broken glass and a piece of wood with a nail in the mix and turned green healty plants to yellow and burned
 
Hmm...well, this plant started life in coir mix, and was up-potted to pro-mix BX, where it's been for 7 weeks. I've watered lightly every 4-5 days or so, and fertilized with half-strength Neptune's fish/seaweed fertilizer around once a week. I might have used full strength fish fert for a few weeks in the middle there, before I decided to cut it back to 1/2 strength. It seems to be a cultivar-specific challenge - all of my chinenses look good, and many of my non-chinenses look pretty good too. This problem is on 4 of my 5 Mariachis, but also on ALL of my J. Nardellos (very sad....near death, those) and most of my Marconis. Around 15 plants in total out of 70 look sick like this - leaves curling up vertically, yellow, poor foliage development, etc. What do you think? I am about to transplant outside and have to get my head around what's wrong here so I can try to salvage these plants with some kind of corrective action. Thanks...
 
I am having the same problem, though not all of my leaves are curled up yet. Anyone have a clue what may be going on?
 
I'm no expert but it definitely doesn't sound like overwatering, poor soil, or over fertilization. My guess is that it's something to do with needing micronutrients, perhaps something like Calcium or Magnesium is needed. I am having trouble with a bunch of plants that I started late with the tips burning, yellowing, and leaves falling off. I haven't been overwatering and have given them very minimal fertlizer. The next step will probably be to get some bone meal for calcium and continue with a foliar spray of Epsom Salt solution for Magnesium. Again, I'm not expert but this is what I seem to have gathered from reading other threads on this forum.
 
Sounds like way too much ferts IMO. Pro-Mix BX already has starter nutes in it and I usually give my plants zero nutes until they reach their final pot. If they are growing well in their small pots and getting tons of light, I'll give them one feeding of 1/4 strength Alaska fish emulsion, that's it. No more nutes until they get healthy and up-potted. Give them a thorough watering, maybe you can flush some of that crap out and just water when they get really dry(pots are light) after that. If you put them outside, keep them in the shade until they get healthy, no direct sun. Peppers are really hard to kill, but all your TLC is not helping. Leave them alone and they'll be fine.
 
Looks like to much nutes to me too.
I fried a couple last month not paying attention and gave them a double dose and they looked just like that one of yours. Give them a really good flushing, and the next watering give them some superthrive. It bounced all of mine back pretty fast, and the new growth that exploded out of them has been awesome. Definitely get them into some shade until they recover. It seems to help as well.
 
I flushed my plants with water. Then in the last pouring, I put in a mix of crushed/powdered egg shells and water that I boiled with crushed garlic. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
SnakeDoc said:
I flushed my plants with water. Then in the last pouring, I put in a mix of crushed/powdered egg shells and water that I boiled with crushed garlic. I'll let you know how it goes.

Garlic? What nutrients does that provide?
 
The only thing I have found garlic good for is getting rid of Fungus gnats, but I use garlic powder on the surface for that. What are you using it for out of curiosity?
Garlic will act as an anti fungus and anti bacterial agent in your soil, especially in higher concentrations. You may have killed off your good micro heard of critters by doing that. It's great for killing Athlete's foot though.
 
Aren't garlic's distinctive smell/taste and repellent properties based on sulfur? So wouldn't that have the advantage of adding it to the soil for plants to use as a nutrient? Unless it's in a form that is unable to be taken up by the roots...
 
I had the same thing happen to some of my plants, and it turned out I was over-fert'ing them. I just used straight water for the next few times I watered, and they turned out REALLY well.
 
When nursing a plant back to health it's best not to add anything to the water you give them. But, you can mist them with a little plant food (about 1/4 strength or less) to maybe help feed them until the roots heal.


Alan
 
I used it because I think I may have a fungal problem. I'm not sure...my leaves are curling up though.

Is SOME leaf curl normal?
 
Good info, all. I decided to flush some of the plants and get them out of the sun for a couple of days so they could chill out, so to speak. It worked! The plants are looking (mostly) better, with just a few still having curled up leaves. I think they just needed a "time out" from the ferts and the sun and the watering and attention. If I could just pay a lot less attention to the plants for the rest of the season, they'd probably grow better.
 
You are starting to catch on. Patience is a virtue growing chiles.

Chiles are pretty un-engineered plants and get along fine with very little input from the grower; grower anxiety/attention is one of the primary causes of chile problems.
 
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