Tall and lanky chilli plant, it is not doing good at all.
There are however, lots of chillies, but they are not turning red like they are supposed to, not like the last few months when I have gorgeous red chillies to harvest daily.
Most of them are rotting and wilting instead of turning red, eventually they will dropped off. And all thanks to the mealybugs! They are killing the chilli plants, sucking the life out of the plants.
Mealybugs...found them under the leaves of the chilli plant, and the whole plant is infested. I really hate these little creatures. Mealybugs can cause severe damage to plants by sucking the juice from the plants, and eventually the leaves will turn to yellow and drop off. The fruits and flower buds will prematurely dropped off too, and that was exactly what happened with my two chilli plants. The leaves dropped off with the slightest touch. Same thing with the chillies, obviously the plants are getting weaker.
I have done all the necessary, used the organic neem spray and other organic sprays. I sourced from the internet on ways to get rid of these insects, and even made my own sprays, none of it work! I have even resorted to clean the leaves, manually with water, it works for a while, but I got tired of cleaning the leaves one by one, it is a tedious and time consuming job.
I can actually see them flying around in my garden when I was watering the plants, and have spotted them at my tomato plant, which I quickly wiped them off from my precious tomato plant!
The best thing to do is to cut off the chilli plants, making sure the stems that are left behind, are free of these bugs and hopefully the plants will thrive again, though I have not made up my mind whether to rid of these plants entirely. Most likely, I would get rid of them and use the pot for other plants. For the meantime, I have given these plants another round of neem spray, and I'll leave them as they are until I decide what to do.
sigh.....!!!
The last of the chillies! Now I got to buy my daily dose of chillies from the market!
Happy Gardening !
My chilli pepper have never free from mealy bugs attack. So annoying!
ReplyDeleteHi Joyce!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to hear of your mealy bug problem. They can be such a nuisance! I haven't had much success with them either I'm afraid. I know one thing for sure though. If you should decide to use the pots again, be sure and give them a bath in a mild bleach solution. It's best to make sure no mealy bug eggs are hiding in crevices just waiting for a new plant!
I know the dish detergent hand washing can be time consuming but it is the only thing that seems to work. I've tried a mild alcohol solution with success too but not on a plant for food.
Since the plant are small now after you cut them and since they don't have any leaves or flowers, I might try just dunking the entire plant in a mild bleach solution for a few minutes to ward off any hidden eggs. It can't hurt since you are undecided anyway:)
Good luck Joyce. I wish I had a better solution for you but alas, not yet...Thanks for sharing, Joyce...
P.S. My Oineapple never did bear fruit but it's such a lovely plant I cut it way back and am keeping it!
Thanks for this information. I have few chili seedlings growing, and guess I have to prepare myself for this war against mealybugs that I'm about to get myself into, haha. I do hope that your chili plant will thrive!
ReplyDeleteHi Joyce! I have two chilli plants right now which grew from the compost. Though they are flowering, the flowers either drop off before blooming or drop off after they have bloomed. So I just don't get excited over flower buds anymore :( I do have this problem with mealy bugs. They are attacking my tomato plants. Sigh....
ReplyDeleteUse pesticide/insecticide as per the directions given. This will certainly destroy bugs on chili leaves & I hope, you will not to buy it(chili) again from the market.
ReplyDeleteTry milk plus water solutions spray but you have to continue applying it weekly twice
ReplyDeleteFerment your rotten, spoiled or c grade chillies in water + 20% vineger to make chillie pest soup. Then spray this solution over the infected plants 1litre water, 10ml dishwashing, 200ml chillie soup 2x a week.
ReplyDelete