Yellow Bumps on Pepper Plants Leaves?

[skiingjeff]

I have King Arthur and Big Bertha pepper plants that I started in my basement nursery. They have never been outdoors yet. They are looking healthy and some are already getting buds on them but it is too early for them to go in the garden here in the northeast.

As I was moving plants around and watering, I noticed this yellow bumpy stuff on two sides of the stems of all my pepper plants. It is on every one of them in exactly the same manner. (See picture below).

Not sure if this is normal stuff for peppers or if this is a scale type of thing.



If it's scale, what do you recommend?

Thanks!

[rainbowgardener]

Interesting. I don't think it is scale insects which would be larger and not so clustered. Tomato plants can start to put out root buds from the stem and look sort of like that. But even though tomatoes and peppers are in the same nightshade family, I hve never seen peppers do that.

Hopefully someone will come along who can solve your mystery.

Do they squish? Can they be rubbed off?

[skiingjeff]

They are hard and do not squish or rub off.

I thought maybe root shoots in a way but they are above the surface. I've never grown tomatoes. Do the root shoots come out above the ground?

[imafan26]

You know it kind of looks like the root "buds" that also occur on tomatoes. If the pepper was planted very shallowly that cluster of bumps might be root buds that were air pruned. If they don't rub off, then you don't really need to to anything about it. You may have to stake the pepper eventually though.

[applestar]

They are below the cotyledons (seedleaves) so I say almost definitely potential roots.
They would benefit from being buried deeper.

[skiingjeff]

Thanks

I'll try that.