Help: Diagnose Plant Disease

[Mapeejing]

Hi everyone,
I am glad to find this website. I need advise please.

I grow chili plants from dried seeds and I also bought a "ready" pepper and mint plant.

I have a helpful neighbor who often water my plants because the Singapore weather is very hot.

My chili plants suffer from some pest attack a few weeks ago. The leaves turned white (photo 1). I sprayed them with dish cleaning detergent mixed with a table spoon of vodka. The leaves dropped. I recently treat them with pesticide. I dropped my niece's urine, used grounded coffee power and tea leaves in the soil. I don't know if I am stressing my plants out.

Recently all plants dropped their leaves. They are almost bare now. This afternoon, I turned the soil and observed a white hair-width short worm. I suspect it is a lava. It is too tiny for me to snap a photo of it.

I wonder if anyone could enlighten me if my plant is suffering from a disease? Is it simply too wet, poisoned by me or the soil too acidic?

1) before treating the plants with soap a 1-2 weeks ago.
2) photo taken today.
3) photo taken today.

Thank you.

[BertieFox]

The white worms might simply be larvae feeding on the dead roots. Isn't Singapore also very wet as well as hot, or is this the dry season? I ask because from the symptoms you describe it sounds very much to me as if the plants have been waterlogged and the roots killed by the poor drainage. Could this be a possibility? In general, though insect pests and other diseases can make plants look really sick they less often kill them off completely.

One pest that could kill off the roots are vine weevils, but these are plump white grubs which you would find in the compost around the roots when you move the plants. I assume you may suffer from these in Singapore.


Your 'helpful' neighbour might just have watered your plants too much. Are the pots well drained?

Try starting again with clean compost, well drained pots, standing in a gravel tray and watered from the bottom, and I suspect you will have more success. Good luck.

[leonmc0708]

I would make two observations but don't offer either as advice or a solution to your problem.

1) Your soil looks very wet (from what I can see on the pictures) and in my experience the chilli family take much worse to being over watered than they do from being under watered.

2) You say you have added dish washer detergent, vodka, pesticide, urine, coffee and tea - that sounds like a recipie for disaster if you ask me. Only pests I get on my chilli are aphids - which are quickly washed off with a blast from the hose or eaten by ladybirds and their larvae.

[Mapeejing]

Hi BertieFox and Leon,
Thanks for your advice. I live on the sixth floor of a flat. I will be very unlucky if a vine weevil find its way here. I will try to examine the soil tomorrow. Singapore is dry and hot. That is why my concerned neighbor water them a few times a day. But we experience rain recently. The soil is well drained. I can see water flowing out from under the pot. Sorry, I am complete new to gardening. May I know what do you mean by watering from the bottom?

Does over-watering also result in dried steam? The soil look too wet and the plant too dry.

I did not realise that pesticide harm plants. I use a lot of it.

My mother had a look at the plant just now and remarked that they were simply dying of old age. Chili is not an evergreen plant. Unlike temperated region, fruit plants cannot last. Is it possible?

Thank you.

[BertieFox]

From what you say it does sound as if this is clearly a case of overwatering. As Leon says, chillis hate having wet roots and this does far more harm than allowing them to dry out.

By 'bottom watering' it simply means that you stand the pot in a shallow tray or dish, ideally with some gravel in it, and keep this wet. The roots from the pot will soon grow into the dish and take up the moisture there when needed. If you repeatedly water from the top of the pot, and several times a day is really excessive, then the lower part of the compost in the pot will remain soggy and the roots will rot instead of developing.

Just water sparingly and your chillis will do fine in future.

[Two_Sheds]

I dropped my niece's urine

for real?

???

[Bill HH]

If I was covered in detergent, pesticide, your nieces urine and vodka (a) I would probably be arrested and (b) I would most likely die. But it looks like they are too wet as others have said.

[AllInContainers]

So overwatered, and late autumn in Singapore ...?

[WendyC]

for real?

???

Other relatives are available.

[Mapeejing]

By 'bottom watering' it simply means that you stand the pot in a shallow tray or dish, ideally with some gravel in it, and keep this wet. The roots from the pot will soon grow into the dish and take up the moisture there when needed. If you repeatedly water from the top of the pot, and several times a day is really excessive, then the lower part of the compost in the pot will remain soggy and the roots will rot instead of developing.

Just water sparingly and your chillis will do fine in future.

Got it. Thanks.
Is there any chance that the plant with leafless, dried steam is going to come alive? Or do I assume it is dead?

[Mapeejing]

I am not that mean to my greens. The Volka goes to the leaves and the urine goes to the soil. :P I have no time to buy a pesticide nor fertilizer. So I improvised. Apprentenly I am not good with it. When I was at Toowoomba, Australia, tomatoes and watermelons grow spontaneously. People actually weed out their tomato plants. It is a little depressing to know that greens can be so vulnerable.

There is only two seasons here: Hot and Dry, Hot and Wet. Aedes mostiqoes breed quickly in the wet seasons. The Ministry of a Health and Environment is very strict about water accumulating anywhere, esp. Plants pot. They come in the inspect all the flats whenever someone contact dengue. I might get a pot, with stopper at the bottom, and fill the base with gravel.

[Two_Sheds]

The Volka goes to the leaves and the urine goes to the soil.

Urine is a good fertiliser, but it should be diluted, perhaps 1:10 or even 1:20.
Also, don't pour liquid onto your soil, instead put the plant into a saucer or tub of water for 10 mins, let it soak up what it wants, then take it out.



Wet Pots - Allows Plants to Water Themselves - The Green Head

That way the soil will be dry on the surface, and you won't get the insects breeding in it.

I've never heard of vodka being of any use to a plant, but am intrigued: is it a usual remedy out there?

There is only two seasons here: Hot and Dry, Hot and Wet.

i remember your rains are very predictable (at least in the month I was there, September). Torrential rain every morning, then hot & humid for the rest of the day (and night). I found the humidity unbearable, myself, couldn't wait to leave