Question


Good Day,

Said too many follow ups?So I had to start a new one. Sorry.

I am from Saskatchewan Canada and it still gets pretty cold at night. Next week looks a bit better though.

Well I sprayed my watermelon and zucchini plants with soapy water and rubbed the leaves with my fingers. I know what you suggested is probably better but I didn抰 want to use a pesticide and I hear soapy water works. I didn抰 see anything alive crawling on them afterwards. I separated the sprayed plants from the others and I am in the process of hardening them off?trying to at least.

The peppers. I checked out the Tomato spotted wilt virus and the Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV). The symptoms on the plants look closer to the TOMV though. I took a closer look and it seems the yellow 搒plotches?seem to be located mostly on the red habanaro pepper variety. If they have it then it抯 going to be hard to spray the plants without contaminating the healthy ones.

Maybe the discoloration of the leaves is due to environmental factors or nutrient deficiency? I came across a site that sed lack of magnesium causes the veins of the leaves to turn yellow. One of the pics I took looked kinda like that.

Nutrient deficientcy?(Hungarian Hot Wax)
http://www.inspiredvisuals.com/Cgtalk/Plants/52.jpg

Another pic of the Habanaro. The underside looked normal.
http://www.inspiredvisuals.com/Cgtalk/Plants/56.jpg

Tomorrow I will spray the rest of the plants. Thanks.


Answer
You do have your work cut out for you in your geographic location.  There is a product called Safer's Insecticidal Soap that is sold at garden centers that would be a better product than the dishwashing soap at home.  The dishwashing soap (such as Dawn) may take some of the wax off the leaves, thus causing the plant to lose water too rapidly and wilt, especially outside in the sun.  The Safer's soap is a different kind of soap formulation and will not harm plants.

As far as the nutrient thing, many vegetable plants grown as transplants inside will develop nutritional problems, especially if kept in the trays for a long time.  Get some Miracle Gro with micronutrients in it and spray the plants with that.  Your pictures indicate a possible iron or manganese deficiency which is brought on by both the lack of these nutrients in the fertilizer you are currently using or too much water which affects the form these nutrients are in and makes them unavailable to the plant roots.

I think everything will be OK.  I would try to get the plants hardened off and planted outside as soon as weather permits.  Everything should be fine.  I hope you are successful in your endeavor. It sounds like you are an avid pepper lover.  I wish you the best of luck.