water Wilting Plant due to overwatering... will it survive?

Jazzman1001

Jazzman1001

Hi Chiliheads,
 
so recently i purchased a nicely grown 7 pot plant that was all decked out in peppers. I went away for a day and while i was gone my friend repotted the plant for me. What she forgot to check was that the drainage holes on the pot had been punched through! 
 
i completely forgot to check this, and when i went off to work it began pouring. When i got home (approximately 10 hours later) i realized what had happened and punched the holes, draining the plant of all that extra water. for the week since this incident this plant has wilted progressively more and is now dropping leaves. 
 
My question is this: in a situation like mine, is the plant dropping leaves in preparation for regrowth (and will it drop its peppers), or does this sort of waterlogging actually injure the plant to the point of no return?
 
any help is appreciated, i really hope i can get some ripe 7 pods this year!
 
-Ben
 
I had the exact same scenario (forgot to punch the drain holes on my new pot).....my Jalapeno is very wilted, but it has produced 3 pods that are growing daily.  However, I don't see any new blooms anywhere.  I repotted it into dry potting mix about a week ago, but it still hasn't recovered.  Not sure if it will or not.
 
Good luck!
 
Maybe I am a bit crazy, or maybe my plants are just weird, but every plant I have potted would be VERY upset with me if I left them an entire week without water. When I do water them I water them fully, until water is pouring out of every drain hole, but after 3 to 4 days of no rain they will start to wilt once again wanting more water. I would check to be sure the soil is still damp at all after 7 days. Please understand I am no expert by any means so if I am way off base please let this go in one ear and out the other, even though it was pretty much drowned, after a week plus bad wilting I would have to see if it actually needs water at that point. Good luck either way.
 
Sincerely, Reverend Michael Massey
 
I wish I could go 3 or 4 days between watering, those I have in the ground will survive that but many in containers needing watering every 36 hours or less depending on temperature and wind... and none of  those in smaller than 7 gallon pots.
 
I agree with Arkennon that if you haven't watered them (nor had it rain) in a week they may desperately need water.  As for the damage from being waterlogged for the rainy day, that can cause a fungal buildup that lets bacterial infection take hold.
 
If it gets a strong enough hold it will kill the plant, but many plants do recover from this.  If you are sure the soil is damp but not drenched and the plant doesn't show signs of recovery very soon, consider repotting it in fresh soil, rinsing the old soil off the roots as gently as possible.  Once repotted, treat it like any other plant that had never been swimming though you might want to keep it out of strong sun, in the shade past the morning hours if it is a hot day. 
 
At this point don't withold any water that you would otherwise give to a different plant of similar size and pot size with the thought that it needs to dry out more.  For recovery it still needs a little soil dampness to survive.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I have been making sure that the soil is still moist every day when i leave and when i come back from work. the leaves seem to have stopped dropping from the plant but the remaining leaves still look wilted down and don't seem to be inclined to fluff back up to what i would consider normal. 
 
It also hasn't dropped its pods yet (thank goodness) and are not weak-stemmed, so i am holding out hope that it will recuperate. if it keeps up the wilting, should i still repot it? i understand that this may just be a result of transplantation mixed with some severe water logging, so would resoiling it actually help or hinder its recovery?
 
fingers crossed that in the next couple days it starts to look better.
 
Thanks for all the help guys, i really appreciate it. i feel like i have come so far this season (my first) learning about growing peppers, but theres so much more to learn! 
 
-Ben
 
^  That's your call, you might wait a bit longer but since it has been almost 2 weeks I wouldn't wait much longer till I gave up on the soil.  It could go either way, plant might die either way or plant might survive either way.   A picture might help but we still won't know visually see how the plant has changed over the course of the past few days.
 
This has happened to my plants more times than I'd like to admit, but the solution is always to let them dry out in the sun, and resume watering as usual when the pot feels light.
 
So here is the plant on the whole

 
Here are the plants' leaves all wilted

 
one of the pepper is ripening, so it seems like the plant isnt horribly bad

 
i was also wondering if maybe it could be a densely packed soil issue? im not sure if my friend was a bit overzealous with the soil or what (should be noted though that all the other plants she repotted are doing great)
 
It should recover. Take your plant out of the pot and take a look at the roots.... post a pic of them. Judging by the size of that bad boy, it could be root bound, which would in turn make it more difficult for it to recover. If it's root bound, pot up!

Also, pick all of those pods off once they're ripe, and your plant should be able to devote more energy to growing instead of fruiting
 
It might just be that during the pot up that your friend might have disturbed the roots, was the plant root bound and your friend opened them up?

Or just the simple potting up might be causing the stressed look. Give it a fortnight ;)
 
Thanks for the advice, im leaving it to dry out a bit. it was root-bound to begin with but my friend told me she didnt disturb the roots on any of them. she repotted 5 plants and the rest of them seem to be doing fine, so im still at a loss on this one's exact reasons. 
 
ill post back in a week or two for a nice definitive answer (hopefully there is one) :)
 
-Ben
 
The pot is way too small for the plant. Repotting into something much larger will get you through the end of the season, but I'd consider taking cuttings off it. There appears to be 4  branch tips that could work. That would extend your grow into next season........with the aid of grow lights or  strong sunlight  from a South facing window.
 
Hey guys, 
 
so it still hasnt recovered, and is slowly dropping leaves still. 
 
PIC 1 said:
The pot is way too small for the plant. Repotting into something much larger will get you through the end of the season, but I'd consider taking cuttings off it. There appears to be 4  branch tips that could work. That would extend your grow into next season........with the aid of grow lights or  strong sunlight  from a South facing window.
Click to expand...
 
ive thought about taking cuttings, but next year im planning on just starting from seed, and so my hope now is just to get the pods on this one to ripen to a point where i can take some seeds from it for next year :p Thanks for the advice though! also, just as an aside, this plant was originally in one of those disposable red cups (at the exact same growth it is now) prior to my transplant. i figured that if it had really been cramped for space it would expand to this new container first before i would repot it into something larger. Not to mention the lack of ground space i have at my place.
 
still, good to know for next year that they need a bit more space. thanks!
 
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