Sudden death pepper syndrome

[horticultor]

I grew some New Mexico chile plants from seed and put them in the ground for fall. Drip tape irrigation. Most are looking good and setting peppers. But I really need help with something!

My plants are spaced 2' apart. At the end of the row, there are 2 plants that are perfectly healthy and bearing. Between them is a third plant that completely wilted in about 36 hours' time and is obviously in a death spiral.

Has anyone out there experienced this problem? If so, what am I possibly looking at, and how can I combat it?

[ginger2778]

Yes! Wow, I sure hope you get an answer, because I need to know too.

[Patihum]

Unless you can see insect damage to the stem I would suspect either fusarium or verticillum wilt with it happening that fast. Especially if it started at the bottom and moved up the plant. Less likely would be bacterial wilt. With any of them there is no cure. Pull the plants and destroy them. The wilts are soil borne so you don't want to plant peppers in that location again.

[Salsacharley]

You might stick your finger in the soil around the plant to make sure the drip tape is providing water at that spot.

[horticultor]

Appreciate the replies. Can't be a lack of water; water stood in that spot last week after a lot of rain. Read on another thread that it might be shock from too much water, though the healthy plants on either side were also in water.

Don't know about the wilt, either. There are lots of tomato plants one row over; all are fine and I haven't had a wilt problem to this point.

Again, appreciate all insights!

[Sun City Linda]

I'm thinking an insect or under ground varmit, here we have gophers. I once had a fully loaded Mortgage lifter plant wilt all over in a days time. I could not see anything, but when I went to lift up some large branches to inspect, the plant was no longer well attached to the ground.

[sfmathews]

Following this too. Just so random.

[noinwi]

i had that happen due to ants under the plants. I dug up the plants and moved them to a different location and they made a slow comeback.

[ginger2778]

What causes it to happen to seedlings in 4" pots ina tray?

[heirloomtomaguy]

I had similar issues with my pepper plants this year also. They were in a row right next to my tomato plants that suffer heavy loss from tomato spotted wilt virus. It jumped over onto my peppers and every couple plants dried up and died without showing the signs of the virus. Only a couple of peppers on the effected plants showed irregular ripening. You might want to check for thrips because they slayed my garden this year.

[b54red]

I have had three pepper plants just suddenly wilt and die in the past two months. I know I have a lot of fusarium and some bacterial wilt in my soil so I'm guessing one of thiose; but it could be something else because the plants right next to them were unaffected.

Bill

[horticultor]

From further observation I'd say that excessive water was probably the cause of my single plant withering all at once (not from bottom to top). Last week I irrigated again and thought one of the adjacent plants might be about to do the same, so shut off the water to that one row. It has since come back and is bearing.

That said, I haven't dug up the withered plant to see if there's fire ant activity in the root area. When I do, I'll post my findings.

[b54red]

Mine were not lost due to over watering. I have had so little rain this year that I have had trouble just preventing total wilting from lack of water. Some of my plants are well over 8 ft tall and plants that large need a good bit of water to continue producing but the lack of rain over the last couple of months here has made it very difficult to keep them adequately watered. I tilled up a bed to plant some greens in last week and it was like tilling in a box of flour.

Gotta get out there and do some watering right now.

Bill