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Even at the stage of growing seedlings, the farmer puts a lot of love and care into the plants, rejoicing at the appearance of each new leaf and is very sad when various insects and diseases attack green seedlings. Peppers, like many other crops, are not protected from all sorts of ailments and can suffer from the negative effects of pests at any time. That is why, when growing peppers, it is necessary to know the symptoms of diseases and how to combat them. This will allow you to detect the problem in a timely manner and prevent its development, keeping the plant healthy.
Seed treatment before sowing
High-quality seeds are the key to a good harvest. This statement must be remembered even before sowing pepper seeds for seedlings. After all, it is on the surface of the grains that all kinds of fungi and pest larvae can be found. If they are not removed in a timely manner, then after sowing such seeds the plants will become infected and when a favorable humid environment with elevated temperatures is created, the harmful microflora is activated, causing harm to still young, unformed plants.
For sowing seedlings, only filled, viable seeds should be used. It is quite difficult to check their germination by eye, so it is better to use the method using a saline solution. To do this, pour 1 liter of water into a container and add 2-3 tablespoons of table salt. You need to put the seeds into the resulting solution and mix the mixture. After 5-10 minutes, seeds suitable for sowing will sink to the bottom of the container, low-quality seed will float to the surface of the liquid. Empty seeds should be discarded, and full seeds should be washed under running water and dried.
Possible fungi and pest larvae can be destroyed from the surface of pepper seeds by pickling. The procedure is carried out by soaking the grains in a weak 1% solution of potassium permanganate. The duration of treatment should be no more than 15 minutes. After dressing, the pepper seeds must be washed and used for further processing with nutrients and germination. An example of treating pepper seeds with potassium permanganate is shown in the video:
Seeds that have undergone “salt selection” and treatment with potassium permanganate will have a high percentage of germination and good protection against diseases and resistance to adverse conditions.
Soil disinfection
When sowing pepper seeds for seedlings, you need to take care of the “purity” of not only the seeds, but also the soil. Often, it is the soil that can contain pathogens of various diseases. Particular attention should be paid to the substrate prepared independently using soil from the garden.
The soil can be disinfected by heating or spilling:
- You can warm up the soil for sowing peppers for seedlings in the oven at a temperature of 170-2000C for 20-30 minutes. Warming up can also be done over an open fire by scattering soil onto a metal plate. Thermal exposure allows you to destroy all harmful microflora and maintain plant health.
- To spill the soil, use a weak manganese solution or boiling water.
Disinfected soil does not contain harmful fungi and pest larvae. By sowing properly treated seeds in such soil, you can reliably protect pepper seedlings from all kinds of ailments. You can see an example of soil disinfection for growing seedlings in the video:
Treating peppers against fungus and viruses
Most diseases of vegetable crops develop in an environment with a certain humidity and air temperature. Diseases can be caused by fungi or viruses. More often, peppers planted in a greenhouse or greenhouse suffer from them. Unfavorable, rainy open ground conditions can also contribute to the development of harmful microflora. In order to protect plants and get a good harvest of vegetables, you need to know the signs of infection and methods of preventing diseases.
Potassium permanganate for disease prevention
There are a number of fungal diseases of pepper, in the fight against which treatment with potassium permanganate is highly effective. Manganese solution can be used to combat and prevent diseases such as:
Verticillium
This fungal disease can manifest itself in various forms, so it is not always possible to recognize it in a timely manner. Symptoms of verticillium in peppers may include:
- Slow plant growth, in which some leaves turn yellow and fall off.The ovaries fall off during the process of formation, and vegetables at the ripening stage lag behind in development. This form of verticillium is called dwarfism;
- The forms of brown and green wilt are similar. In this case, the infected plant looks relatively healthy and well-formed, but its leaves gradually change color and fall off. With this form of verticillium, the plant can die in a few days.
Infection with this fungal disease can occur during transplanting or loosening peppers, when the roots of the plant are injured. Verticillium cannot be cured; however, to prevent it, it is recommended to grow varieties resistant to this disease. You can also prevent the development of the disease by disinfecting the soil with potassium permanganate or boiling water before planting the seedlings.
Phytoplasmosis
This disease, caused by harmful microorganisms, can also be found under the name stolbur of pepper. Plants become infected through contact with insect vectors, such as aphids, cicadas, and mites.
In the early stages of infection, symptoms of phytoplasmosis appear on the tops of peppers. The edges of young leaves begin to dry out and curl up. As the disease progresses, all leaves on the bush become yellow and curled. Peppers on such bushes have an irregular, twisted shape and begin to turn red before biological maturation occurs. Pepper seedlings, like adult plants, can develop phytoplasmosis.In this case, young plants develop slowly and stop growing in a dwarf form.
It is quite difficult to prevent infection of peppers with phytoplasmosis. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to protect plants from insects that carry the disease. Plants damaged by the disease must be destroyed by burning. After working with peppers suffering from phytoplasmosis, gardening tools should be thoroughly washed with a solution of potassium permanganate.
Late blight
Many gardeners are familiar with this fungal disease. It can affect various types of vegetable crops, including varieties of bell and hot peppers. With late blight, brown spots appear on the leaves of the plant, which increase over time, affecting the entire leaf blade. On the fruits of the crop themselves, weeping brown spots similar to rot can also be observed.
Infection with this disease occurs through late blight spores, which can be airborne or found in the ground. When they fall on the leaves of peppers, the spores are in a “dormant” state, but become more active when humidity increases. Only 4-5 hours are enough for the disease to develop.
Late blight can become a real problem for a gardener, since spores at the stage of active development can damage plants and fruits. You can fight the disease with the help of chemical drugs “Ordan”, “Oxyhom”, “Ridomil Gold”. The biological product "Fitosporin-M" is a product that shows high effectiveness in the fight against late blight in the early stages of infection.
To prevent the disease, it is necessary to spill the soil with copper sulfate or potassium permanganate even before planting pepper seedlings. With the onset of active flowering, peppers should be sprayed with products containing copper. These simple preventive measures will reliably protect plants from disease.
Blackleg
This disease is typical for pepper seedlings and adult plants in greenhouses. Blackleg infection occurs with seeds. That is why planting material must be disinfected before sowing.
The disease develops in conditions with high humidity and poor air circulation. Symptoms of the disease are the appearance of dark spots on the trunk of the pepper and gradual wilting. If the problem is not detected and corrected in time, the death of the peppers is inevitable.
Preventive measures to prevent the disease must be taken care of at the seed sowing stage, processing and sowing grains at the recommended distances. Already grown seedlings are treated with potassium permanganate for the same purpose. Maintaining the humidity regime will also protect peppers from blackleg at all stages of cultivation.
Processing peppers with chemicals
In addition to the above diseases, peppers may suffer from:
- Spotted wilt (bronzing). This disease turns young pepper leaves bronze or gray-violet. Over time, brown spots appear at the base of the leaves, spreading over the entire leaf surface. On the fruits of infected plants you can see spots in the form of rings of various colors. You can treat peppers for bronzeness with “Fundazol”.
- Cladosporiosis, which is manifested by the appearance of brown spots on the outside of the leaf and a gray coating on its inside. As the disease develops, the pepper leaves fall off and the plant itself dies. Preventive measures in the fight against the disease are compliance with the humidity and temperature conditions in the greenhouse, treating the soil and equipment with copper sulfate. To treat plants from this disease, you can use the drugs “Barrier” and “Barrier”.
- Mosaics. A symptom of this viral disease is the variegated color of pepper leaves, combining shades of light and dark green tones. The disease is not capable of destroying the plant, however, it significantly reduces the crop yield. To combat mosaic pathogens, you can use the drug “Commander”.
- Gray rot, which develops at high air humidity and temperatures up to +200C. A fungal disease affects stems, leaves and fruits. Peppers infected with gray rot become moldy and become unfit for consumption. The disease can be treated with “Barrier”.
When growing sweet Bulgarian varieties and hot peppers, it is necessary to remember, first of all, about disease prevention measures. Thus, all fungal diseases can be prevented by treating pepper seeds, soil, walls and structural elements of the greenhouse, and garden tools with potassium permanganate. Spraying peppers with boric acid allows you to feed the plants and make them more resistant to various diseases. Treating seeds, seedlings and adult peppers with Atlet will also allow the plants to gain enough strength to withstand all kinds of diseases.
Treatment of peppers for pest control
Insect pests cannot destroy pepper crops, however, their activity negatively affects the crop yield. In relation to pepper, aphids, slugs and spider mites often show activity.
Aphid
This insect, familiar to many, parasitizes the stems, leaves and flowers of peppers, sucking juices and nutrients from the plant cells. As a result of such exposure, the leaves curl and dry out, the ovaries and flowers fall off, and the fruits take on an ugly shape.
To combat the pest, you can use special preparations, for example, “Karbofos”, “Keltan”. Some gardeners use a homemade infusion to combat insects. To do this, add a glass of wood ash and a tablespoon of liquid soap to a bucket of water. The prepared solution is used to spray plants.
Slugs
Slugs are not averse to eating the fruits and leaves of peppers. As a rule, rotting forms in the places where they “meal”, which can lead to leaf falling and loss of harvest. To combat this pest, you can use the chemical drug “Strela”, but there is also a folk method of fighting the slug. It consists of protecting the plant by making a ditch around the perimeter of the ridge. Ground hot pepper or mustard powder is poured into it. When watering, you must ensure that the water does not wash away these substances, and after rain, the soil in the grooves must be loosened and sprinkled again with mustard or hot pepper.
Spider mite
The presence of this pest can be signaled by a characteristic cobweb on the inside of the pepper leaf. As a result of this effect, the leaves curl, flowers and ovaries fall off. Spider mites negatively affect crop yields.You can fight ticks with Karbofos, Fosbecid or Fufanon.
It is worth noting that boric acid can be an excellent measure to protect peppers from pests. It contains poisons, consuming which insect pests die after 8-10 hours.
Conclusion
Preserving your harvest is quite simple if you know who and how to fight. So, every gardener should know the symptoms of plant infection and methods of protecting them, as well as ways to combat various harmful insects. Preventive measures based on the use of heat treatment and treatment with manganese and boric acid make it possible to prevent a lot of problems in advance, protecting plants from the moment of seed germination until the end of fruiting.