I grew a beautiful jalapeño pepper plant from seed in 2007. I love my chipotle (and you can’t find ripe jalapeño in Denver in the cold months to save your life) so dug it up in the fall and brought it in for the winter. I put it in a nice south facing window happy spot and all was well…..for awhile. It transplanted well and was soon to give me my first batch of gorgeous fruit right around Christmas. The red peppers with the green foliage were better than poinsettia, and edible! The problems started when I was away around the holidays and my negligent business partner baby sitter apparently didn’t open the curtains much while I was gone and my poor little pepper was not happy. It lost a bunch of leaves but seemed to stabilize with proper light. It was still growing afterwards but I started to notice that the formerly healthy leaves were dying from the leaf tip and seemed to have a grayish/purple “dust” approximately one half inch in front of the necrotic tissue.

(Figure 1 shows some of the old leaves what were dying at one point) It appeared to be some type of mold or other fungi attacking it. The plant was growing but the seemingly healthy leaves continued to die as fast as the plant could replace them. It also started growing short gnarled branch segments (figure 2) with fewer fruit sets and smaller fruit that just didn’t ripen correctly. I took a few leaves to some of the local nurseries and they couldn’t identify the problem. About this time it was spring again so I put the plant outside again and figured the summer would straighten it out. Much to my dismay, it was growing better but it was still not right. I was considering starting over with another plant when I ran across the Fungi Perfecti catalog and got my hands on some of their mycorrhizal fungi. I inoculated all my plants, including the pepper, at the end of August 2008. It took a few months (I assume the mycelium takes awhile to colonize the roots) but it started to look healthier. As autumn approached with cooler days and cold nights I put the plant back inside the south window and after some acclimation, it stared to grow again. Not only did it grow, but grew normally!! The branches weren’t the gnarled stubs it had been growing for almost a year!! The mycorrhizal fungi apparently brought it back to full health!! (Figure 3). Figure 4 shows the whole plant, 18” of normal original 1st season growth, 4” of second season of unhealthy gnarled growth turning into 10” healthy growth again in the last few months!!! Figure 5 shows a close up of the braches original healthy growth to under attack to perfect health. What I surmise happened is that the initial lack of light stressed the plant and weakened its immune system. It was attacked by the mold in its weakened condition and was never able to get its immune system healthy enough the fight off the attacker. The pepper limped along with the chronic infection until it was inoculated with the mycorrhizal fungi. They colonized its roots, which increased the plants nutrient uptake and allowed the plants immune system to become healthy. It then was able to defeat its long-term adversary. At least it’s a theory!! Well, that’s the story of the little pepper plant that could.

Until next time, this is James signing off.