Pinocchio's Nose

[teakdesk]

I grew Pinocchio's Nose chillis last year. Germinated well and grew to 3" tall then the leaves on one plant got a mottled yellow tinge so I threw it away.

Then all my other ones went the same way except for one plant which grew and fruited.

The pots were mixed in with my other 5 varieties of chilli which all did well. The problem only affected Pinocchio's Nose.


This year I got fresh seed and germinated 5 seeds in my heated frame in my greenhouse.

I have just found one seedling with the same yellow mottling on the seed leaves and the emerging true leaves have gone yellow. None of the other Pinocchio's Nose are affected yet and neither are the othe 3 varieties growing with them.

I've pulled the seedling out and attached a photo.


Any clues as to what is happening? Is Pinocchio's Nose known to be disease prone?

[quark1]

Unless you're absolutely sure that the yellowing is due to disease or over-watering - why not isolate the mottled specimens and see if they grow just the same.

There are some chillis which often produce variegated leaf colours - purple tiger - some of which did the 'coloured' thing and some which were 'expected' green leaf.

[teakdesk]

Unless you're absolutely sure that the yellowing is due to disease or over-watering - why not isolate the mottled specimens and see if they grow just the same.

There are some chillis which often produce variegated leaf colours - purple tiger - some of which did the 'coloured' thing and some which were 'expected' green leaf.

I'm not sure of either disease or overwatering (or even temperature). I had 5 of them them jumbled up with another 20 odd chillis so they will have got the same water and temperature as the others so I discounted that.

By being next to other chillis I would have expected disease to affect other varieties if it was air-borne so I discounted that.

Without anything else to blame I decided it must have been disease in the seeds when I bought them so I was amazed (and disappointed) to find the same thing today with new seed.


I did manage to grow one of my plants that seemed unaffected last year and the leaves were a normal green.

I still have 4 seedlings that I will keep my beady eye on now.

[zazen999]

Are you giving them a feed, such as seaweed?

Are they still growing?

[teakdesk]

The photo is of a seedling that was sown about 3 weeks ago and germinated about 10 days ago. They are in 2 inch square modules of fresh compost sown one seed per module.

Yes, they are still growing; two days ago there was only the seed leaves but now the true leaves are emerging.

I thought they are too young to feed as the compost should have enough for the first few weeks of germination, but if another seedling starts to go the same way I have decided to try a weak nitrogen feed.


The plants last year had been potted on into 3.5 inch pots of multi-purpose before they succumed so again I had expected them to have nutrient available.





Thinking about the compost I got a big bag of multipurpose compost from B&Q that I wasn't happy with for seeds - a bit to lumpy - not too sure if it had peat in. This is what I used for these seeds. I would happily blame this compost but all my other chillis sown in it seem fine so far!!!!!

I used all that compost and bought a B&Q peat-free multi-purpose and this was full of bark etc (even bits of black bin liner). I have since got a "peat included" compost from B&Q to use for seeds.

I'm going to sow some more seeds in this better compost tonight as a back-up.

[zazen999]

Teak...if I remember this evening I'll dig out Hessayan's book and have a look for you. If I don't come back here, prod me sometime [by PM} before 10 and I'll look it up for you.

We're off to the lottie in 10 mins to weed and I'm sowing carrots, so quite excited!!!