A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners
Weird Baby Leaves on Pepper plants
Greetings Fellow Aquapons,
A few of my pepper plant's new leaves started coming crinkled. How anyone seen this before? Any suggestions to what I should do if anything?
Many thanks,
Bryan
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair on
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Looks like calcium deficiency. Are you buffering with calcium bicarbonate?
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Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on
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Yes, I have seen this before...and even wrote about it this winter and snapped some pics in this thread (in the comment section)... http://aquaponicscommunity.com/group/fish-less-systems/forum/topics...
(hi-jacked my own thread hehe)...
If it is calcium related, it would seem like it's some genetic quirk that won't allow the plant to properly uptake calcium because no amount of babying that plant with nutrients helped any. It came out of the seed like that right off the bat and kept on growing that way.
I'm positive that in my particular case that the funky peppers' environment was not calcium deficient.
Also, along with the crinkling edges, little tiny holes would appear in some of the leaves.
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Permalink Reply by Bryan Acred on
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Yes Vlad, I am seeing the tiny holes as well. Were you still able to get peppers from the plant?
Jonathan, thanks for the reply. Where can I buy calcium bicarbonate? The store that I shop in carries liquid and powder forms of calcium but I dont know if it is calcium bicarbonate. You can tell I am a newbie right?
At any rate, will it raise my pH? Should I foliage feed?
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Calcium carbonate and calcium bicarbonate can be (for most our purposes) treated as the same thing...Calcium bicarbonate is just what calcium carbonate is called when it's dissolved in water...
IMHO my absolute most favorite way to add usable calcium (Ca2+) to a system is to takes my hard high pH water (since its full of CaHCO3) and drop the pH a bit with regular old hydrochloric acid (HCL)...
What this does is lower pH by "eating up" the alkaline CaHCO3 releasing plant usable Ca2+ in the process (and a tiny bit of CO2 gas). I'm a sucker for thrifty 'home-spun' methodologies as long as they work as well...Of course this probably only works if you have hard calcium bicarbonate (CaHCO3) filled water.
If you buy at the store and want to foliar feed there are products with CaO and trace elements you could foliar feed, or you could use the above method since you too have hard water...though I doubt either will help your plant (hope that I'm wrong though).
As far as the pepper...I only had 5 spots in the dual root zone set up, and I purposely filled one with that Quasi Motto pepper to see if it would produce normal fruit or get better...After a few weeks I got antsy looking at the perfectly good Habenero chili plant languishing off to the side next to my speakers, just so I could fulfill my wayward curiosity...So I chucked the deformed plant and put in the Hab...It did however start to form deformed-ish buds before I tossed it...This was in the dead of winter and I was tight for space...
So I am curious to see if yours will bear normal fruit...
...You might as well get prepared and order/buy some Potassium Bicarbonate though to use as a buffer once in a while..... http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGGE_enRS353RS359&aq=1&...
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Ebay has several sellers at reasonable prices. You can get a 1-5 pound of the stuff for $10-$15
Bryan Acred said:Yes Vlad, I am seeing the tiny holes as well. Were you still able to get peppers from the plant?
Jonathan, thanks for the reply. Where can I buy calcium bicarbonate? The store that I shop in carries liquid and powder forms of calcium but I dont know if it is calcium bicarbonate. You can tell I am a newbie right?
At any rate, will it raise my pH? Should I foliage feed?
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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on
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calcium carbonate is one of the easiest things to come by. It is in egg shells, limestone, oyster shells, chicken grit, garden lime and so on. A little goes a long way. Most of us have the problem that our water has too much of it and keeps our pH too high while providing too much calcium and causes us problems with potassium.
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Good information TCLynx. We have chickens, so I can get some egg shells easily. How many egg shells should I use for both of my 4x8 grow beds since it will raise the pH?
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I use the shells from 7 or 8 eggs broken up as my only buffer for about 100 liters of water. I have 2 cups under my water outlets to the grow bed with the shells sinking to the bottom so that all the water in the system eventually comes in contact with the shells. However, I only have a few goldfish so there is not a ton of biological activity. I'm sure you could just play with it until you find the balance for your desired PH.
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Shells should be put in a mesh bag so you can take them out as needed or add to them. They are not very fast acting though so if you need more a small spoon full of garden lime or better yet some potassium bicarbonate is faster acting.
Beware you don't want to move your pH fast though, you only want to adjust it by .2 per day. Though adding hard well water usually acts quicker so small top ups of hard water are better than big water changes.
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My pH has been steady @ 7 to 7.2 for the past few days since the 5% water change. Since the plants need the calcium, I am hesitant that it will mess with my pH too much and I'll land back into the high 7 low 8 range..
I may just try the well water since it is so hard. I'll use it in moderation for my 300gal tank and see what happens.
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Right Bryan,
If your pH is in the 7-7.2 range, leave it alone. If your pH drops down to 6.5 or below you can add some buffer in a bag or use a little potassium bicarbonate or simply top up with your hard water again. Generally 6.8-7 is thought of as optimal and 6.5 is the take action point.
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Permalink Reply by David on
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My experience with calcium deficiency is that by the time I notice I need it then it's already too late. It will take several days to correct once it is noticeable anyway.
Egg shells in tulle works over a period of 3-5 days as a controllable soft buffer that can be removed easily if your pH begins to rise too much. I don't think a direct add would benefit you in any way because once the bicarbonate dissolves then you are toast. I think we could all easily agree that a severe pH bounce could take down the whole system within hours. The BB colony could suffer damage or even die off, the fish would probably not take it well and the plants would be shocked into not accepting nutrients.
Make sure you microwave or bake the eggs shells well to dry them out BEFORE you put them in your system. Any lysozyme protein in the shell can easily wipe out your BB colony. It also zaps any possible salmonella that might be in the shell. Take away point is don't use raw untreated egg shells to make your buffer if you decide to take this route. As a safety net the egg starts to dissolve slower as the pH rises above neutral.
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