Peppers

I know this seems very obvious to most growers as we have sunscald every year in our vegetable plantings. This year just seems to be especially bad as I have gotten several calls from growers about a strange problem in their peppers that looks like sunscald, but couldn’t be. The reason given that it could not be sunscald is because the plants have thick foliage and the fruit seem well covered.

Southern blight is a fungal disease that is most common in the tropics and subtropics, but also is found in the SE United States in the summer. In Maryland we usually find it in the southern part of the state in counties like St. Mary’s, Charles and Wicomico. It has been found this year in more northern counties such as Frederick, Montgomery and Baltimore.

Over the years several high tunnel (HT) growers have complained to me about how after 4-5 years of growing various vegetables (although tomatoes were the most grown) in their high tunnel they are seeing poorer yields and ‘unthrifty plants’. This seems puzzling because they have put a great deal of compost in their HT and the soil looks great. The problem I think is high soluble salts in the soil which will damage overall plant fitness and yield.