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Leaves yellowing, dropping off.

10 years ago

Greetings from New Zealand.

Got a problem with my peppers developing yellowing on the lower leaves which sometimes causes the leaf and stem to fall off.

You may also be able to detect some rusty spots on a couple of leaves.

Plants were transferred to their big pots about three weeks ago. From seed they had had very vigorous growth and were looking very healthy and deep green. I grew them in a very gritty mixture I made myself from screened seed raising mix and pumice.

For the big pots I purchased organic compost in bags from the garden center. This was a standard commercial variety, essentially the store brand of which they must sell thousands of bags each week.

The compost seems to hold onto moisture, although it breaks up nicely in the hand even when newly watered.

The annuums (Anaheim, Cherry, Hungarian, Cayenne) seem to be yellowing the most. The Serrano has a couple of very nasty looking leaves at bottom but the rest of the plant seems pretty good. I have a couple of Bhut Jolokia and one Habanero and so far they look to be keeping their color and health.

Other than watering, the plants have had no fertiliser since they were re-potted three weeks ago. Previously I'd been feeding them a regular weak solution of regular liquid fert.

Any ideas?

Comments (9)

nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Pic
nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Pic
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I live far away from you, in a different climate, but I have experienced much the same as you. I have a rosebed made up of mostly peatmoss bought in bags, and the roses have been suffering from all kinds of anemia and deficiency symptoms. However two years ago I discovered that watering regulrly with a liquid type of fertilizer with all micronutrients made the plants healthy looking and growing well. Last year this was all I gave them. The type I used was very much the same as the non-organic version of Miracle-Gro. A few times I also watered in a weak solution of salpeter [Ca(NO3)2], alcaline nitrogen. This made the old plants grow and flower like never before, and I thought I had found a great solution for this bed. No other type of compost, or solid organic or non-organic fertilizer did much for this bed. This year however all the roses given this treatment are hardly alive, a couple of them completely dead. Non of the other roses were I only use solid organic fertilizer suffered any winterdamage to speak of, and I'm pretty shore this treatment made them very suseptable to frost damage. I though that giving a low nitrogen fertilizer from mid July through August would be enough to harden them off for the winter, but appearantly not. These roses as mentioned are this year either dead, and all very slow to start growing, and they hardly have any leaves or buds compared to healthy roses. Symptoms of iron or nitorgen deficiency and very small leaves. I swear, growing roses organically in real soil makes them more winter hardy. Even though you didn't use water soluble fertilzers like I did, your rose might have suffered similar winter damage to cane and roots. Major mistake on my part, but I suppose this can happen after an extra hard winter too.
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Yeah, repot it, dude! Soil eventually wears out. A friend who is a horticulturist (college educated and degreed, not just backyard like most of us) told me once that the most common mistake people make with all containerized plants, especially houseplants, is not to repot enough. Every year is needed for some types of plants, every 2-3 years should be the longest interval. Why, you ask? Well, a few reasons. The soil in the pot comes with a finite "lifespan" as to its ability to nurture the plant. It has a set amount of macro and micro nutrients, and a set colony of beneficial microorganisms available to break down nitrogen and do other stuff. Even if you fertilize regularly and add the trade elements, after a while, your soil just gets tired and the composition changes as things break down to being unusable in the microscopic mix. ALso, in that situation, the water soluble elements of the fertilizer you use (the "salts") may no longer be broken down properly and can accumulate in the soil and start to adversely affect your plant. Too, your plant grows and demands more of the small patch of soil you have it in. Roots get bigger, and a larger plant places a larger demand on the existing soil. Over the years, as root volume increases, soil volume can actually decrease. Go on and repot! Don't be scared! Your plant will reward you.
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In my experience, even after hardening off, it seems like most of the overwintered leaves end up getting dropped eventually. Maybe I don't spend enough time with hardening off. But, I have also read where overly large leaves are one way plants try to gather more light and smaller leaves means that the plant is getting all the light it needs. I don't know if that's true or not, but, a theory to consider.
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I would put a shallow pot/saucer with soil in it under that big growth at the top of the picture, pin down, hold it down with a small rock or weight. Since it is a growing plant, if you try and root the part that seems to be the biggest/healthiest, while it is attached to the 'mother plant', it should root very fast. Then cut it off, and whats left of the plant, should sprout out new growth on its own, or you can THEN try and root the rest of it, as shown in that diagram. I am assuming that trying to root part of the plant, while it is still attached to the 'mother plant', it will root much faster, and your chance of success is much higher this way. Right?
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nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Pic 4
nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Pic 5
nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Compost
esox07 (4b) Wisconsin
10 years ago
Pretty normal for lower leaves to yellow and drop. If it isn't affecting the upper part of the plant, I wouldn't worry too much. The moisture issue concerns me a bit though. Try to let your plants dry out almost all the way before watering. If your soil is holding too much moisture, you may want to change them to something that drains better.
Bruce
tsheets
10 years ago
Try hitting them with some nutrients next time you need to water. Like most things, when something unexpected happens, look at what changed recently. In this case, the medium. It probably holds a lot more water than the old mix, plus, the roots haven't filled it out yet, so it probably won't need watering as often for a while. Also, if the compost is still breaking down, it could be using up the available N. So, I would be careful of them staying too wet, and see if fertilizing helps.
seysonn
10 years ago
I would also second"
-- lower leaves yellowing, falling off is normal. More so in container.
-- General pale green is caused by : too much moisture AND/OR too little nutrients, especially nitrogen. Keep in mind different peppers have different foliage in terms of darkness of green.

--- Unfinished compost can absorb an lock up some of the nutrients for a while until it becomes saturated.
nuwanda
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks for the replies.

I've been growing peppers in containers for ten years and I can't agree that yellowing and dropping off of leaves is normal. I've not found that to be the case, certainly not to this extent, at this early stage.

The replies lead me to believe it's related to the compost mix, and it may be a combination of water retention and unavailability of nutrients.

I'm trying a foliar spray to get nutrients to the plants without further dampening the roots. I will also try some Epsom salts.

Hopefully I can save what was until recently looking like a wonderful crop of plants.

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