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health help me figure out what's wrong with my orange habs

mega

mega

I've got some strange kind of rot on about 1/3 to 1/2 of the pods on one of my orange habs. And sadly, the same rot appears to be showing up now on a red hab. It doesn't look like pests or crawly things, but it's not at the blossom end for BER. I can't figure out what's going on here. Any input would be much appreciated.

This first pic shows the characteristic indented concave rot/soft spot on the stem end, which has hit about 1/3 of the pods.

ohabrot1.jpg


This next pic shows the indented concave rot, but this time more on the blossom end, with a noticeable hole at the stem end. I believe this hole was probably an advanced stage of the rot, rather than a pest crawling its way out. I should note that we had pepper maggots hitting the Jalapenos all throughout June, but these holes do not look like pepper maggot holes to my eye.

ohabrot2.jpg


I sliced up some of the damaged ones to look inside, and I don't really see the flesh munching characteristic of garden pests who bore through pepper walls. Besides, what would pests be doing munching on thin-walled orange habs? I have big fat, thick-fleshed sweet peppers growing not 18 inches away.

015.jpg


Thoughts?
 
Apparently your question is a real stumper; I'd also like to see somebody who knows what's wrong.
Are you experiencing very wet conditions? Little sun and constant dampness? Is there a lot of air movement through your plants? Is the rest of the pod okay? Heat and flavor? They do look like ripe pods; so maybe they're salvageable.
Good luck with that.
 
For the heck of it I googled; What is the cause of soft spots on pepper pods? Check this out; it's from the Maryland Extension Service.

http://www.hgic.umd.edu/_media/documents/hg57_000.pdf

Scroll down to "fruit".
 
good link Ajarn...however, IMO they left out one of the major causes of "soft" spots on the pods....sunscald...

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=sunscald%20peppers&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1003&bih=574
 
AlabamaJack said:
good link Ajarn...however, IMO they left out one of the major causes of "soft" spots on the pods....sunscald...

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=sunscald%20peppers&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1003&bih=574
Click to expand...

Good call, seems possible (I checked out your link); but would it affect so many of Mega's peppers? His foliage must be pretty thin then, yes? I have no experience with this; so I have only questions. Cheers.
 
thin foliage is a good cause for sunscald...but even if you have good foliage and the pods are in the sun for even part of the day...sunscald can occur...
 
I don't think it's sunscald - I've dealt with that before. These are really circles of rot - soft, squishy rotted areas on the surfaces of the peppers. They may be starting out as white discoloration, then going to squishy rotted circles, and completing their journey as holes in the peppers. Now, I've found some of these on my red habs, not just the orange habs, so it is not plant-specific.

Conditions this summer have been unbearably, historically hot, requiring a lot more watering than previously. I am thinking this is some kind of water/moisture related rot, but I can't find anything on that, and I don't know if it makes any sense that a wet pot would lead to rot spots on the pods.

Again, any insight would be appreciated. I've been searching online for info but have not found anything that exactly fits the description.
 
mega said:
I don't think it's sunscald - I've dealt with that before. These are really circles of rot - soft, squishy rotted areas on the surfaces of the peppers. They may be starting out as white discoloration, then going to squishy rotted circles, and completing their journey as holes in the peppers. Now, I've found some of these on my red habs, not just the orange habs, so it is not plant-specific.

Conditions this summer have been unbearably, historically hot, requiring a lot more watering than previously. I am thinking this is some kind of water/moisture related rot, but I can't find anything on that, and I don't know if it makes any sense that a wet pot would lead to rot spots on the pods.

Again, any insight would be appreciated. I've been searching online for info but have not found anything that exactly fits the description.
Click to expand...

I think you're correct; not sun scald. Did you check the link I posted?
Try an anti-fungal treatment; can't hurt and may check the problem. Also, don't water the foliage, only the dirt/soil. In fact; don't water the soil until your plants go into a serious wilt. Keep the plant dry as possible and open to air movement.
That said; I don't know what's wrong, but it sounds like a moisture/humidity problem.
Please keep this thread going with updates so we can know the outcome. Good luck.
 
mega said:
These are really circles of rot - soft, squishy rotted areas on the surfaces of the peppers. They may be starting out as white discoloration, then going to squishy rotted circles, and completing their journey as holes in the peppers.
Click to expand...

That description and first pic surely looks and sounds like sun scald to me.
 
UPDATE: I took a few of the habs to a local nursery today where they have a guy with 30 years of experience in growing vegetables. He actually could not tell me for sure what was going on! Yikes. He said it was 99 % likely to be some kind of cultural issue, not pests or disease. I think that includes water/moisture problems. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it. He said most of these kinds of problems can be avoided by using a good mulch.
 
mega said:
UPDATE: I took a few of the habs to a local nursery today where they have a guy with 30 years of experience in growing vegetables. He actually could not tell me for sure what was going on! Yikes. He said it was 99 % likely to be some kind of cultural issue, not pests or disease. I think that includes water/moisture problems. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it. He said most of these kinds of problems can be avoided by using a good mulch.
Click to expand...

You can also take them to your state extension service where it's likely they'll know what is causing the problem.
 
AjarnV said:
SS, I thought sun scald created a hard scab on the surface of the pod; not a soft "spot"? Not had that problem, so I'm going by pics I've seen. Cheers.
Click to expand...

All of the sun scald I've seen on my maters and peppers starts off as a lighter colored spot that eventually goes wrinkled, soft and brown/tan in color with a thin easily punctured skin covering the soft spot.
 
+1 SS
 
I took Ajarn's advice, and hand-delivered one of the damaged habs today to the Fairfax County extension service for analysis. They said they will get to the bottom of this by Thursday/Friday and send me the results by email. I'll be sure to post the results here as soon as I get them, for the curious. Thanks for the input, all.
 
mega said:
I took Ajarn's advice, and hand-delivered one of the damaged habs today to the Fairfax County extension service for analysis. They said they will get to the bottom of this by Thursday/Friday and send me the results by email. I'll be sure to post the results here as soon as I get them, for the curious. Thanks for the input, all.
Click to expand...

Count me in. ;)
 
The cooperative extension folks are having difficulty figuring out what this one is about, and seem to think it's a worm/caterpillar thing. However, I took the opportunity to go googling and reading and really getting my head into it, and I think it is, in fact, run-of-the-mill sunscald, with a possible pepper maggot chaser on a few of the pods. I have had maggot issues this year, and that's confused the whole thing since there are some egress holes on some pods in addition to the sun rot. But now I'm pretty convinced that the rot and the occasional egress hole are two different maladies.

My plants have really nice, full foliage, so maybe it's just the incredible heat of this summer causing the sunscald even with the lush leaves. I didn't take sunscald into account earlier because the foliage is dense, but maybe there's some extreme heat level that just penetrates through or magnifies any slight lack of foliar coverage.
 
Major addition to my previous post about this being sun scald. The coop extension people emailed a set of detailed pics of one of my pods to the Univ of Georgia and to Virginia Tech for analysis, and those two set of folks agreed: stink bugs. Which I haven't seen this summer but were at epidemic levels of infestation last year and over the winter here in Virginia. Interesting.
 
mega said:
Major addition to my previous post about this being sun scald. The coop extension people emailed a set of detailed pics of one of my pods to the Univ of Georgia and to Virginia Tech for analysis, and those two set of folks agreed: stink bugs. Which I haven't seen this summer but were at epidemic levels of infestation last year and over the winter here in Virginia. Interesting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the follow-up. Very interesting... :think:

I've got 4 plants (chinense) loaded up with pods and am hoping there are no surprises just as they ripen. Cheers and it must be good to have an answer; I gather there is a remedy.
 
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