Wireworms killed my pepper plant?

[Lmbauer2017]

Howdy,

Last week I came home to find my pepper plant had severely wilting leaves. It honestly had the same look of when you cut a branch off any plant and the leaves start to wilt within half an hour. It was the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in the garden so far because it happened so suddenly. AND no other plant near it was affected (3x7ft raised bed).

I couldn’t find anything visibly wrong, I checked the base of the plant to see if something chewed a hole into it, lightly dug around the soil to see if there was some sort of larva/bug (though I had no idea what I was looking for). I see these little black beetle-ish looking things crawling around the soil every now and then. They’re about 1/4inch long (I’m going to try and get a picture today).

Anyways, the plant died the next day, looking like it just had all its water supply cutoff. Then today, I found one of my ripe cantaloupes had fallen into the bed, when I lifted it up I found a nightmare of wireworms burrowing into it! Could these have been the cause?

Below is a picture of the worms (I think they’re wireworms?), and then a picture of the bed with the dead pepper plant stem in the middle and completely healthy plants surrounding it.

 

[Chuck]

I have never heard of wireworms killing anything. I dig them up in my garden all the time. The only thing I have ever had them damage was by burrowing into a few carrots. Pull the pepper completely out of the ground and examine the roots and perhaps take some pictures if you see anything of notice.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

Man I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t pull it out at the time to inspect it. The pick below is the root from almost a week ago. I dug around the soil, the only visible bugs I saw was the occasional spider mite looking bug (maybe 2 or 3 after a few minutes of moving soil around). The root looks like a root to me… there’s a pic with the dirt on, then I washed it to see if there was some sort of visible damage.

I was gonna do a couple drenches of BT and/neem back and forth. Pretty much all I got. I would be willing to fork out some money and get beneficial nematodes, but they’d probably die as soon as the sun comes out.

 

[Chuck]

The roots look good considering the plant has been dead for a week. The problem IMO is not in the soil. What is that white stuff in the first picture at soil level? It appears that the cuticle, epidermis and cortex has been compromised at soil level, in essence, girdled. This would cause a fairly rapid death. Cutworms can do this, so can mice and rats, but I am sure there are other things that can cause it too. I just don't know. I suppose this will be one of those unexplained mysteries. One of those learning experiences you will not forget in the future.

Drenching with Bt will be a waste of good Bt. Drenching with Neem may or may not be of any help at all and it will not change anything that led to the death of the plant.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

Ok no worries, yea I was kind of looking at the outer layer wondering if it was just rot or if it was there before. The white stuff I believe is mycelium. I have a couple inches of good quality hardwood mulch and they like to colonize it in patches. I’m not sure if it just sprang up after the outside began to rot or not. We’ve had a few days of rain (+overcast since yesterday) so I’d imagine it spread during that time…

Thanks for telling me to save my neem and BT. And I’m glad the wireworms aren’t a huge issue because they definitely freaked me out (it looked like a miniature horror scene! Haha).

 

[Chuck]

Ok no worries, yea I was kind of looking at the outer layer wondering if it was just rot or if it was there before. The white stuff I believe is mycelium. I have a couple inches of good quality hardwood mulch and they like to colonize it in patches. I’m not sure if it just sprang up after the outside began to rot or not. We’ve had a few days of rain (+overcast since yesterday) so I’d imagine it spread during that time…

Thanks for telling me to save my neem and BT. And I’m glad the wireworms aren’t a huge issue because they definitely freaked me out (it looked like a miniature horror scene! Haha).

It probably is mycelium. Mycelium feeds on dead and decaying wood. Now you just have to figure out what made that part of the plant die. Just a thought but have you noticed any palmetto bugs around your house? I once had them eat my large tomato seedlings. They left the leaves but ate the stem.

 

[YumYum]

What is that white stuff in the first picture at soil level?

That sort of looks like Southern Blight leftovers but the little white balls (sclerotina) are missing.

 

[Chuck]

That sort of looks like Southern Blight leftovers but the little white balls (sclerotina) are missing.

It does resemble southern blight but there is no stem decay that I can see and the OP cut the plant down. With SB the plant usually falls over because the stem has what looks like water soaked lesions.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

Luckily I have not seen any palmetto bugs around here (I have a deep seated fear of them lol). I DO have plenty of field roaches, little guys that I’ve read are pretty beneficial eating dead stuff. I don’t mind those as much. My cat loves to lay in the raised bed underneath that giant purple basil, but he hadn’t been in there for well over a week before.

Honestly this was one of the healthiest plants in this bed, loaded with peppers. When it started dying, the leaves looked exactly like I had snipped the trunk off and left it standing up. I thought I was crazy lol. The top 5inches of soil seemed a little drier than I’d prefer, but it would’ve shown signs over the course of many days, and a good drench would’ve brought it back (which I gave it out of desperation ).

I’ll be starting some more seeds of this variety (Fresno Pepper) and throw it in the exact same spot and see what happens.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

Is it happening again to this pepper plant on the other side?! Or it may have been the heat today because the side that’s dying looks like it’s hanging over the bed. The heat index was in the upper 100s today… so this may be a different situation.

PS I drenched it with water because once again the soil felt a little too dry… maybe the gaps in the wood on the edge of the bed are causing that section to dry out very quickly?

 

[Chuck]

If the plant looks basically OK tomorrow AM it is a watering/heat issue.

 

[Meadowlark]

Lmbauer2017,​

It may not be any consolation but many plants in my garden wilted today, even Okra. The heat index was something like 120 out there.

They will mostly bounce back overnight but they must have water. This week may be the toughest of the summer to get through in the garden. If you can make it, consider yourself proud, if not don't disparage because everything is suffering.

Keep building your soil and the better it gets the better plants can tolerate this heat.

 

[Lmbauer2017]

So I increased the watering of my drip irrigation, and it’s still dying. I may need to do some forensic analysis…

First picture is the next day at 10 AM. The second picture is this morning before the sun came up.

PS: check out the cucumber seedling just 6 inches to the right of the plant. It seems steady and strong.

 

[YumYum]

The first thoughts in my mind on the pepper plant is either too much shade or too much nitrogen or from the looks of the shade cloth and the very dark green leaves, both. The pepper seems too heavily wilted to me compared to the cucumber plant. Put 1 quart of 3% hydroden peroxide in a gallon of water and water the pepper heavily one time. It won't hurt the plant. The soil might try to reject the peroxide so you have to pour it kind of slowly. That will aerate the soil and also, I believe, decrease nutrient uptake a little and also knock off some bad microbes if you have a wilt disease. And let the light in.

 

[Chuck]

Something is definitely amiss with the root system of the plant. You can't compare the cucumber with the pepper. The cuc roots are shallow and the peppers are deep. This is the time of year for damage from grub worms to manifest itself. I would not be surprised if you didn't have a couple of them happily munching away on roots. I had a tobasco pepper plant do the exact same thing. I was sure it was a watering issue but it wasn't. I pulled the plant couple of days ago and looked at the roots. Sure enough, there they were, 3 of them. Is your plant close to a night light of some kind? Mine was and I saw June bugs flying around the light a couple of months ago but I didn't relate to it. I,m not saying it is grubs but it could be. And anyway, having a cucumber that close to a pepper plant is not a good idea as it will climb all over a pepper plant and shade it way too much. I would dig the plant up and do an autopsy and concentrate on pickles. I would do @YumYum advice on peroxide first though although I doubt it is an oxygen or a disease issue, it can't hurt anything and might solve the problem.