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why is my fatalli pepper plant wilting?

tjg911

tjg911

hi,

i just joined and posted in the welcome forum. this is my 1st pepper posting. i looked at the forums and i think this is the correct place for this post. if not please tell me where it should be.

ok, i have a problem. i'm a fairly experienced organic gardener, i have been at it for 20 years. i just started to grow hot peppers in 2009. this year i have 1 fatalli that is about 12" tall and 20" wide and 1 scotch bonnet just a little shorter and less in diameter and what was supposed to be 3 long red slim cayenne but were mislabeled and appear to be long red thick cayenne..

everything was fine until tropical storm irene blew in last sunday 8/28. initially the winds were from the south then as the storm passed they came from the north. when i went into the garden monday 8/29 the fatalli plant looked fine but was leaning at a 45 degree angle. at the ground around it's base was a hole about 2 to 2.5 inches from the plant being pushed back and forth by the winds. the scotch bonnet was not moved by the winds. things looked ok for the following days but on friday 9/2 i saw all the leaves were wilting badly. i had last watered on friday 8/26 but since irene dropped 9" of rain i hadn't watered since. but since the plant was wilting i gave it 2 gallons of water with neptune's harvest fish emulsion as it was the time to fertilize all the plants. on saturday it looked no better so i gave it another 2 gallons of plain water. today it is still wilted all the leaves are still drooping down tho it doesn't look worse than on friday. i'm worried it will die. the peppers might be drying out not ripening tho they feel firm still. i need another 2-3 weeks for them to ripen before the sun is too weak to sustain the plant, by 10/1 gardening is pretty much over for warm weather crops here.

are the leaves wilting from the plant being pushed around that caused broken roots? could something be eating the roots like a vole causing the wilting? i tend to doubt that because the scotch bonnet is next to the fatalli and it is fine. 4' away are 3 cayenne plants which are also fine.

what can i do to get the plant to hydrate? i assume watering it is not helping since i've given it 4 gallons between friday and saturday. most of the peppers are still green tho some are turning yellow and like i said i need more time to get them to ripen. i don't have a digital camera so i can't post any pictures but i think you get the picture here.

thanks for nay advice you can offer.

tom
 
Sounds almost like you've over watered it. It's also possible all the rocking back and forth tore up the roots. Possible root rot too. If it were me I think I would repot the plant and give the roots a good going over. Or just leave it in the sun and allow it to dry out some and see if there's any improvement. Sorry I couldn't be more specific. Good luck.
 
That's curious. Typically overwatering will cause the leaves to yellow before they ever start drooping. Drooping is frequently a sign of underwatering, but that doesn't seem the case here. You did say the peppers were yellowing, but do you mean the pods or the leaves?
 
Another thought: I got a particular fungus in my front bed a couple years ago, which killed almost everything in it. It started on one end, then just kept spreading. The plants had all been georgeous, to the point my neighbors were quite jealous, then suddenly BOOM - an entire plant that looked fine one day was terribly wilted the next. Dig down a bit, and see if you've got some white to peach stuff growing beneath the surface.
 
geeme, white to peach stuff growing beneath the surface? Can you elaborate? Is it connected to the roots?

Root rot usually turns the roots brown. At times you can actually pull the brown parts off of the root like it's a shirt sleeve leaving a much smaller in circumference root behind.

I know it's odd but over watering can cause plants to wilt just like they were dried out. In this particular case I wouldn't water for a few days and see what happens.
 
The white to peach stuff was like a layer under the immediate surface of the soil. It was not specific to a plant - it was EVERYWHERE in the bed. I dug and dug and dug that stuff out, by hand, trying to keep it from spreading. I ended up hiring a guy to dig the whole thing out to at least a foot down and bring in fresh dirt. It was kind of spongey, as I recall. But again, it's been a couple of years.... just kind of a bad nightmare at this point.
 
The best way to re-hydrate the plant/leaves in this situation (IMO) is to put a fine mist of plain water or water with a weak seaweed solution onto the leaves themselves in the morning and again in the late afternoon.

This way you can get water into the plant and its does not need to rely on the roots (which by all accounts sound as if they got damaged in the storm and thus cannot take up enough/any moisture/nutrients to sustain the plant)

In the mean time it should hopefully start repairing/re-growing some roots and you can slowly taper the foliar watering off when the plant has regained some stability.

Then again if the base/roots are too badly damaged then it will be likely that you won't be able to save the plant whatever you do. (as if the wilting is too severe the stomata will be closed up and won't allow absorbtion anyway)

That is just my opinion though.
 
Sounds like a form of chilli blight. Its a soil based disease. The lower leaves start to wilt like they have been steamed, then it moves up the plant. once the wilt egtes to the top, the plant is terminal. It is highly contagious and will spread from plant to plant just like what geeme said. You can only try to treat it. I caught it once by using some yard sweepings as mulch. A very expensive lesson. You treat the soil by drenching the pot until the mixture (Fungicide) runs out the bottom. So one the day you are meant to water, don't water. Instead apply fungicide mixture by a watering can. Its a good idea to also do a foliar spray. There is no iknown organic way to resolve the problem. You will only be able to kill about 90% of the fungus, so you have to retreat the plants. Any plants that die. The entire pot and its soil have to be removed perminantly. If the plant died in the ground, never grow there again. You will have to treat all your plants. repeat the treatment every 2 weeks for about 2 months. Left untreated, it will kill every chilli plant you have.
 
tjg911 said:
hi,

i just joined and posted in the welcome forum. this is my 1st pepper posting. i looked at the forums and i think this is the correct place for this post. if not please tell me where it should be.

ok, i have a problem. i'm a fairly experienced organic gardener, i have been at it for 20 years. i just started to grow hot peppers in 2009. this year i have 1 fatalli that is about 12" tall and 20" wide and 1 scotch bonnet just a little shorter and less in diameter and what was supposed to be 3 long red slim cayenne but were mislabeled and appear to be long red thick cayenne..

everything was fine until tropical storm irene blew in last sunday 8/28. initially the winds were from the south then as the storm passed they came from the north. when i went into the garden monday 8/29 the fatalli plant looked fine but was leaning at a 45 degree angle. at the ground around it's base was a hole about 2 to 2.5 inches from the plant being pushed back and forth by the winds. the scotch bonnet was not moved by the winds. things looked ok for the following days but on friday 9/2 i saw all the leaves were wilting badly. i had last watered on friday 8/26 but since irene dropped 9" of rain i hadn't watered since. but since the plant was wilting i gave it 2 gallons of water with neptune's harvest fish emulsion as it was the time to fertilize all the plants. on saturday it looked no better so i gave it another 2 gallons of plain water. today it is still wilted all the leaves are still drooping down tho it doesn't look worse than on friday. i'm worried it will die. the peppers might be drying out not ripening tho they feel firm still. i need another 2-3 weeks for them to ripen before the sun is too weak to sustain the plant, by 10/1 gardening is pretty much over for warm weather crops here.

are the leaves wilting from the plant being pushed around that caused broken roots? could something be eating the roots like a vole causing the wilting? i tend to doubt that because the scotch bonnet is next to the fatalli and it is fine. 4' away are 3 cayenne plants which are also fine.

what can i do to get the plant to hydrate? i assume watering it is not helping since i've given it 4 gallons between friday and saturday. most of the peppers are still green tho some are turning yellow and like i said i need more time to get them to ripen. i don't have a digital camera so i can't post any pictures but i think you get the picture here.

thanks for nay advice you can offer.

tom
Click to expand...
Pictures man, pictures. Its nearly impossible to diagnose plant symptoms without a visual. :)
 
well more rain is predicted for the next few days starting tonight, tropical storm lee i suspect, so i can not stop the watering or foliar feed with seaweed emulsion with rain over the next 3 or 4 days. the plant looks worse today even the peppers are feeling dry not supple. the leaves are green no yellowing. as i mentioned, other pepper plants next to this one are fine. all the pepper plants are mulched with shredded leaves from that i got last fall from a guy that picks up leaves in the fall. everything in the garden is mulched with them except for the tomatoes and everything is done fine so i don't suspect the mulch. a picture won't tell you anything i did not explain, the leaves are wilted, drooping straight down but still the normal color green they were last week. i suspect the roots were damaged from the back and forth beating that caused the base of the plant's stalk to create that rounded hole at ground level. looks like i'm going to lose it.
 
tjg911 said:
well more rain is predicted for the next few days starting tonight, tropical storm lee i suspect, so i can not stop the watering or foliar feed with seaweed emulsion with rain over the next 3 or 4 days. the plant looks worse today even the peppers are feeling dry not supple. the leaves are green no yellowing. as i mentioned, other pepper plants next to this one are fine. all the pepper plants are mulched with shredded leaves from that i got last fall from a guy that picks up leaves in the fall. everything in the garden is mulched with them except for the tomatoes and everything is done fine so i don't suspect the mulch. a picture won't tell you anything i did not explain, the leaves are wilted, drooping straight down but still the normal color green they were last week. i suspect the roots were damaged from the back and forth beating that caused the base of the plant's stalk to create that rounded hole at ground level. looks like i'm going to lose it.
Click to expand...


If you think you're gonna lose it anyway, did it up, check for root rot and repot it...it will shock the heck out of the plant but if it is going to die anyway, what have you got to lose...and IMO, plants in containers are much easier to take care of when they are sick because you can control things better...this is assuming you are going to overwinter it...
 
AlabamaJack said:
If you think you're gonna lose it anyway, did it up, check for root rot and repot it...it will shock the heck out of the plant but if it is going to die anyway, what have you got to lose...and IMO, plants in containers are much easier to take care of when they are sick because you can control things better...this is assuming you are going to overwinter it...
Click to expand...

interesting i can't now it's dark out and it's supposed to rain like heck until friday so i'm afraid it's a lost cause.

i don't like growing anything in containers except for parsley 3 plants per pail and eggplant 1 plant per pail, these are 5 gallon pails. do hot peppers do well in a 5 gallon pail? in my experience plants do better in the garden with those 2 exceptions.
 
tjg911 said:
interesting i can't now it's dark out and it's supposed to rain like heck until friday so i'm afraid it's a lost cause.

i don't like growing anything in containers except for parsley 3 plants per pail and eggplant 1 plant per pail, these are 5 gallon pails. do hot peppers do well in a 5 gallon pail? in my experience plants do better in the garden with those 2 exceptions.
Click to expand...

Plenty of people on this forum grow chilli's/peppers in containers with great success. A 5 gallon (18-20 litre) container would be fine for this purpose. I have grown Annuums with great success in substantially smaller containers then that even (9-10 litres)
 
I have pretty good luck growing in 5 gallon containers...this is the last video walk around from last year..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeyhcncQD4I
 
well here's a new twist to all this! monday thru today (wednesday) we've had 7 more inches of rain (4.5" just today!). the fatalli plant appeared to be done for on sunday as it was wilting badly and then with all the rain that was predicted from tropical storm les i figured that was it. i was out there this afternoon and surprised to see that the fatalli plant's leaves while still drooping are not as bad as they were on saturday especially sunday! the peppers are supple again and several are yellow having changed from being 1/2 yellow and green and there are not as many green ones. so maybe just maybe the plant will pull thru.

plants are slow to respond to things so perhaps it just took this long for the roots to get enough nutrients or water to help the plant? or maybe the rain on the leaves hydrated the plant? it still looks like it needs a good watering but it definitely looks better than on sunday because on that day it looked to be 24 hours from being dead.

so now what do i do? has all the water helped? if so thru the leaves or roots? if i don't water it for 2 weeks and it doesn't rain i expect it would start to wilt more. the scotch bonnet and cayennes still look fine.

thanks for any help.
 
If it's anything like the awful last season here, I'd say your plants are trying to adapt to the huge climate changes (I mean local to your garden as a result of the storms; not end of the world stuff). From your normal climate to a monsoon and then back again. My whole garden couldn't work out what was going on, as soon as they adapted to climate, it would change again. You might be lucky - if the white/yellow stuff isn't a disease it could be mycelium, which will really help in breaking down larger bits of organic matter.
 
Just when you think you have a handle on what's going on everything changes. I'm glad to hear the plant is doing better tjg911.

Maybe the roots were a bit torn up by all the rocking and it's taken them this long to recover and start to feed the plant again. Maybe the pepper fairy came by and touched the plant with her magic wand.

Growing peppers can be so frustrating at times can't it?

Good luck to ya!
 
i guess this will be the final reply. today the plant looks bad again, the leaves are green but drooping badly much worse than the other day. i gave it a lot of water and sprayed the leaves too but i doubt this will help. i picked the fully yellow peppers. some are part green and yellow so i hope they'll ripen and about a dozen are small and green, i doubt they'll grow and ripen. too bad just as the plant is ready to finish off this happens. i have more green peppers that are small than i have picked ripe. i used all of them today in a mustard based hot sauce, it's hot! thanks for your comments.
 
tjg911 said:
i guess this will be the final reply.
Click to expand...

or not!

today i went and looked at the fatalli expecting to pick all the peppers before they start to dry up. now about 1/2 of the peppers were green and small (about 1" long) the other day and i'm shocked to see that most are yellow today! now none grew any longer of course but how in the world did small green peppers on a dying plant turn yellow in such a short time? i watered the plant twice on saturday and the leaves as well but on sunday it looked much worse so that's why when i went out today (monday) i took snippers to cut off all the green and 1/2 yellow fruits.


so i did not pick any peppers figuring the few green ones may well turn yellow in another day or two.

any comments on how these fruits turned yellow so fast (from saturday at noon to monday at 3 pm)? i thought such small fruits (1" long) needed to grow to full size to turn yellow. the plant's leaves are badly wilted and appear to be drying up now so the plant is not making a come back, maybe a dying hot pepper plant will ripen fruits fast? i know sweet pepper plants don't behave this way. maybe those fruits were ready to ripen despite they are just 1" long and it appears they quickly ripened? i have to say in all my years gardening i have never experienced so many unusual things about any plants as this 1 fatalli plant!
 
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