Limp leaves on my chilli plants?

[PaulG]

This is happening on my plants under light, first thing in the morning the leaves all look superb and glossy, by early evening many of them are limp and lack any shine, especially the Cayennes, next morning they are back to normal. They look similar to how the leaves go limp on the ones in the greenhouse if temp gets too high in there.

I water little and often, usually every other day, and keep the soil/compost mix just on the wet side of damp, feed them weekly with multipurpose liquid fertislizer with additional minerals etc, i have a fan blowing across them most of the day which keeps heat levels around 20-25C.

Is there something i am missing or is it quite natural considering they are growing very fast?

[zazen999]

That's when I give mine a water, when they go a tad limp.

[PaulG]

I did wonder that but they are doing it regardless of water ie i can water them heavily when they go limp, next morning the leaves are lovely but again by evening they are limp again and the soil can still be quite wet (tried already to see if they needed more water as they grow).

They seem to be showing no other sign of distress and in the mornings they look far healthier and vibrant than the greenhouse bunch, the leaves are huge compared to the greenhouse ones.

The only other thing i had wondered was if they are becoming CO2 starved by the end of the day, it is setup under the stairs which is quite a large area and i open the door quite often throughout the day just in case but i have no knowledge in this area.

[rana]

One difference between day and night is the fan. The constant breeze may be stressing the plants by causing over-transpiration. Try a bit less fan.

[Two_Sheds]

I am totally intrigued by your indoor-under-stair chilli experiment!

I can't wait to see what fruits you get, and if you think all the effort has been worth it. (I just bung mine in the lotty and leave them to it)

[PaulG]

One difference between day and night is the fan. The constant breeze may be stressing the plants by causing over-transpiration. Try a bit less fan.

Good point, the fact that the cayennes are closest to the fan and are going limp the most supports this, will try and give maybe just an hour or two a day and split that up.

I am totally intrigued by your indoor-under-stair chilli experiment!

I can't wait to see what fruits you get, and if you think all the effort has been worth it. (I just bung mine in the lotty and leave them to it)

Originally the purpose of the light was just to bring them on quicker and then put them outside (because i was so late sowing them), especially the Bhuts because they are such slow growers, but after noticing the huge difference in speed of growth between these and their brothers/sisters in the greenhouse i decided to keep them as an experiment throughout the whole season.

We have curry, Thai curry and chilli very often here so the more fruit i get the better. Next year i am going to try and grow Cumin, Coriander etc so i always have fresh ingredients to cook with and to make my curry paste from. Will try and get some pics taken later today and put them up here to show the difference in sizes.

[Alison]

Interesting experiment but not one I'd want to do. One of the things thats of particular importance to me is to grow things as simply as possible without too many artificial stimulii. I do resort to a heated propogator in spring to get things started but that's about it - also I'm tight and don't want to pay the electrical bill and not organised enough to do the extra keeping an eye on them that you must need to do. Also (just me this one!) I wouldn't want to keep my plants under the stairs, would be like depriving my babies of natural night - OK, maybe I need help here though!

Re the problems with your limp leaves, have no idea, mine tend to go a bit like that when they need watering but perk up OK afterwards.

[cwipnip]

with the watering you want to water alot, less often otherwise they form shallow root systems and suffer more damage during a drout

[Alice]

You could grow your coriander this year Paul. It comes up very quickly.

I think your chillies are objecting to the fan. You could try leaving it off and see if that cures the problem.

[SarzWix]

Yep, the fan is likely to be the last straw, but I also think that you might need to move the lights away a bit. The combination of the heat from the lights and the drying effect of the fan is causing the plants to lose water faster than it can be drawn up from the soil. Eventually that will also affect the fruit because there won't be enough water to give both the fruit and leaves what they need. Also, if the temperature rises too much it affects the formation of buds and the pollen.
Perhaps if you have the fan on but pointing upwards, or away from the plants it might still move the air around enough to decrease the temp a little.

[Llamas]

I grow cayennes too and they're doing the same thing. The first time they did this sent me into a tizzy, but they're growing fine with no other problems so I've just been ignoring their antics. I wish my white habs would get on with it though.

[gadgetman]

Trouble with all the artificial stimuli, is that they will be more likely to go into shock when given normal conditions.

I start all mine on a south facing window sill, straight into 2" pots and they all germinated within 5 days, and are outside doing quite well - although not quite as well as last year

[PaulG]

Since reducing the fans usage they seem to be suffering a lot less, heat is not really an issue even without the fan, it rarely goes above 25C. I am only using a singe 125W CFL and even after being on for 14 hours you can comfortably put your hand on the reflector. I mainly used the fan for air circulation and to help strengthen the stems, which certainly worked because they have solid stems now.

Done some side by side pics, plants on the right are greenhouse ones, I have most of the ones under light in planters, because I want them to become a little rootbound and control the overall plant size (following suggestions from other people via pm to keep them a little rootbound anyway).

These are the Aji Limons


The Long Slim Cayenne


The Thai Red, No planter with these as I only kept 3, the one on the left is the only one under the light.


The Bhut Jolokia, only had 3 germinate and all are under the light, the small one in the middle came up with the seed shell still wrapped around the first leaves, it took a while to soften it and remove but the plany is growing fine now, if a little delayed.




I could not get these pics the right size for the built in uploader so have used clickable thumbnails back to photobucket.

[Two_Sheds]

Paul ... I thought they were going to be huge.

[bramble]

They look like very healthy plants Paul, but they have a long way to go yet before they start to produce fruits.
Good luck and keep us posted.