Bacterial spot on peppers

[imafan26]

I have a started a lot of different pepper seedlings but it the weather has been hot, humid and we are getting some rain mostly at night.

All of these conditions has resulted in a lot of bacterial spot on my pepper seedlings.

At first I was controlling it with sulfur and picking off the leaves, but now it is spreading and occurring in my seedlings as well.

Should I stop trying to save these peppers and cull them instead?

[Demosouthpaw]

I have a started a lot of different pepper seedlings but it the weather has been hot, humid and we are getting some rain mostly at night.

All of these conditions has resulted in a lot of bacterial spot on my pepper seedlings.

At first I was controlling it with sulfur and picking off the leaves, but now it is spreading and occurring in my seedlings as well.

Should I stop trying to save these peppers and cull them instead?

Good evening OP,



Bacteria can be a tricky pest to deal with, in fact bacteria is often mistaken for fungus. Either way, you want to make sure when ever you are gardening to have an IPM system in place (integrated pest management). In your case, because of the rain you probably would have wanted to treat your plants more often. An organic fungicide or antibacterial may be applied even if there are no signs of infection or disease present. Often times these treatments are no more than plant extracts or beneficial bacteria. Ripping off too many leaves will result in severe weakening of your plant, at that point you would have probably wanted to hit your plants with a synthetic chemical to take back control of your problem. And then begin an organic treatment.


Hope this helps


-Jonathan

[imafan26]

Thanks Jonathan.

I ended up culling the worst of the plants and most of the infected seedlings. I have picked off the leaves of the older plants and I continued to fungicide weekly to keep the spore counts down and protect the peppers that had not been infected yet. The weather has cooperated and most of the rain that is coming is able to dry off quickly and the peppers look better. I am still finding a stray leaf I missed every now and then but the peppers are still producing peppers and none of the fruit were infected. To be safe, I am replacing my mother plants with new ones once all traces of the disease is gone and I am not saving seeds from these. Luckily, I have a lot of seeds already saved and except for one or two plants, most are easy to obtain.

[applestar]

Interesting that you didn't get an immediate response on this one @imafan.

Is bacterial spot a rare disease for peppers, more often occurring in the more tropical areas? Maybe far south like Louisiana? Florida?

As far as I know, I don't get bacterial spot on my peppers (KOW).

[imafan26]

Hawaii is a tropical savannah. It has a definite wet and dry season. Thanks to El Nino we had a dry winter, but a wetter than normal summer, although the rain only fuels the humidity, it really isn't enough to water much.

Normally, in summer when I plant my peppers there isn't enough rain, long enough to cause fungal or bacterial diseases in peppers. This year, we have been hit with the remnants of a few tropical storms so a few days of muggy weather with no trades and some moderate showers at the wrong time of day, for a few days at a time just created conditions to promote those problems. I also grow a lot of different peppers and seeds from multiple sources. So, all I need is to have one contaminated batch to spread to the other plants.

[Demosouthpaw]

Hawaii is a tropical savannah. It has a definite wet and dry season. Thanks to El Nino we had a dry winter, but a wetter than normal summer, although the rain only fuels the humidity, it really isn't enough to water much.

Normally, in summer when I plant my peppers there isn't enough rain, long enough to cause fungal or bacterial diseases in peppers. This year, we have been hit with the remnants of a few tropical storms so a few days of muggy weather with no trades and some moderate showers at the wrong time of day, for a few days at a time just created conditions to promote those problems. I also grow a lot of different peppers and seeds from multiple sources. So, all I need is to have one contaminated batch to spread to the other plants.

Hmm gives me an idea, cross breeding peppers. Maybe with sometime you can breed a Fungus/Bacterial resistant plant. That would be cool, imagine the monetary gain in royalties

[imafan26]

There are some that have some resistance.
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell. ... Table.html

The UH has bred a bell pepper for Hawaii that will last over a year called Kaala. The only problem with it is that it is a mini bell. It is 1/3 the size of a regular bell pepper.
,
Most bell pepper varieties don't live very long; maybe 3-8 peppers at that most. The hot peppers varieties do a lot better and some can live for years. The Asian sweet peppers also do better.

Like fusarium in tomatoes there are multiple races of bacterial spot in peppers, so there are only a few cultivars recommended for Hawaii. California wonder, yellow bell, yolo wonder, Keystone Giant resistant, Emerald Giant and Titan.

Most of the peppers I am growing now are new cultivars or Asian which are more productive in the heat but for the most part they are not listed on the Cornell site so disease resistance is unknown.