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RogueRose
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Droopy Pepper Plant

For some reason my red bell pepper plant is unhappy and I can't figure out why. Everything else in the garden is thriving. Here is a picture of the pepper plant:

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The stuff on it is just mud....not fungus or anything. Pretty sure.

In contrast here is a pic of my jalapeno:

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And here is a pic of everything else in that area - potatoes, some tomatoes, strawberries, all thriving (I had dug around the root system of the pepper to see if anything funky is going on around there and to check how wet the soil was which is why it looks that way in the pic):
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And it's hard to get a good pic of the garden this time of day with the shade coming in, but everything else is thriving:

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JayPoc
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weird....just looks like it got too dry based on the picture. Did it get too dry, or is it a recent transplant? If that's not it, I have no idea....weird...

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RogueRose
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JayPoc wrote:weird....just looks like it got too dry based on the picture. Did it get too dry, or is it a recent transplant? If that's not it, I have no idea....weird...
I know it looks too dry to me too - BUT we've had rain! It rained yesterday.....and not torrential downpour but a good amount to soak things nicely. It isn't a recent transplant....maybe a month ago? The tomatoes were planted at the same time as the peppers and you see they're already going nuts.

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rainbowgardener
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No it doesn't just look too dry. Look at all the rusty brown spots on the undersides of the leaves and the leaf curl. I can't see the top side of the leaves that are showing the brown spots. I think your plant is diseased or possibly under attack by some kind of leaf sucking bug.

You could look it over carefully and try treating it, but if you have enough other plants, I would think about sacrificing that one to keep the problem from spreading. Don't put it in your compost pile.

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RogueRose
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rainbowgardener wrote:No it doesn't just look too dry. Look at all the rusty brown spots on the undersides of the leaves and the leaf curl. I can't see the top side of the leaves that are showing the brown spots. I think your plant is diseased or possibly under attack by some kind of leaf sucking bug.

You could look it over carefully and try treating it, but if you have enough other plants, I would think about sacrificing that one to keep the problem from spreading. Don't put it in your compost pile.
I'm pretty sure the rusty brown spots is just dried mud - I was out there rubbing it and it came off.

I am keeping an eye on it though...if it doesn't perk up, it's getting pulled up and thrown out.

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applestar
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Sometimes they do that if they get beaten up by strong winds. Did you have any recently? Is it in a more exposed spot?

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Francis Barnswallow
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Wasn't it hot in the Northeast recently? Could be a heat issue. Here in Orlando, my pepper plants always wilt during the day and as the sun starts to set they come right back.

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RogueRose
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applestar wrote:Sometimes they do that if they get beaten up by strong winds. Did you have any recently? Is it in a more exposed spot?
Maybe some when the coldfront came in.....It isn't really exposed though. The tomatoes give it some cover. I dug it up and threw it out....I just didn't want it passing anything it had to the other plants and it was just as easy to get another pepper plant from the nursery. Nothing in the roots at all. Who knows. It's a mystery!

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RogueRose
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Francis Barnswallow wrote:Wasn't it hot in the Northeast recently? Could be a heat issue. Here in Orlando, my pepper plants always wilt during the day and as the sun starts to set they come right back.
It was hot up until Monday. So it could be residual of that. But usually they bounce back pretty quick once they get water/it cools down.

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Cola82
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I would think it'd be pretty easy to tell if it was just wilting in the sun by whether it continued to wilt in shade, throughout the night, and what not.

Mine both definitely wilt in the sun and spring back as soon as it goes behind the house.

ETA: I notice the wilty one has big fruit on it and the perky one doesn't seem to have any yet (or just nubs anyway). Maybe it's working too hard? Is that a thing?

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RogueRose
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Cola82 wrote:I would think it'd be pretty easy to tell if it was just wilting in the sun by whether it continued to wilt in shade, throughout the night, and what not.

Mine both definitely wilt in the sun and spring back as soon as it goes behind the house.

ETA: I notice the wilty one has big fruit on it and the perky one doesn't seem to have any yet (or just nubs anyway). Maybe it's working too hard? Is that a thing?
Yeah in the past when I had peppers wilt from heat or lack of water they'd perk up within an hour of being refreshed.

The "working too hard" does make sense....I wonder if that could happen?

mattie g
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RR...

I had two bell peppers right next to each other last year in a "new" section of the garden. It was probably sometime in mid- to late-June that one of them wilted something serious, so I pulled it. The other plant thrived all season.

I have no idea what happened to the wilted plant, but I figured that pulling it was the lesser of two potential evils. I think pulling it was the right call on your part.

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RogueRose
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mattie g wrote:RR...

I had two bell peppers right next to each other last year in a "new" section of the garden. It was probably sometime in mid- to late-June that one of them wilted something serious, so I pulled it. The other plant thrived all season.

I have no idea what happened to the wilted plant, but I figured that pulling it was the lesser of two potential evils. I think pulling it was the right call on your part.
Thanks! I agree....I'll never fidn out what the deal is, but it's easy to just $3 get another pepper plant.

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jnunez918
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I had a couple doing that. I removed the lowest branches, like suckers, staked, and sprayed with hasta gro plant.



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