Sweet peppers are a popular vegetable brought to the European continent from South America. Like many others, adapted to the new climatic conditions of the culture, pepper is susceptible to diseases of a different nature: fungal, viral and bacterial.
Fungal diseases.
- 1. Aging is a disease of seedlings and seeds buried in the soil. Caused by a number of fungal pathogens. Most often it manifests itself in the fact that the seeds do not germinate (usually they say "stalled"). In seedlings, during rooting, the root system is affected , and they massively die. Some infected plants manage to grow to adulthood, but in the future, under favorable conditions, the infection develops, the roots rot, and the plant has to be discarded.
Aging is characteristic of greenhouses and greenhouses, where the conditions of plant maintenance are far from optimal. As a rule, temperature and irrigation regimes are not respected, and plants are grown in cold and waterlogged environments.
For preventive purposes, it is necessary to choose only healthy and high-quality seed material for planting, to disinfect the soil before sowing with antifungal compounds, and also to avoid excessive watering and low temperatures in greenhouses.
- 2. Sweet peppers may suffer from stem and root rot. The disease usually occurs in thickened plantings and on soils with poor drainage at high humidity of air and soil. Root rot of fungal origin manifests itself in watery brown or black spots at the base of the stem, plants gradually weaken and die. Stem rot occurs in places of damage or on stem nodes, captures the fruit cup of pepper.
Among the preventive measures: seed dressing (for example, a solution of aloe juice with water 1: 1), disinfection of soils in greenhouses, compliance with crop rotation and thinning plantings.
- 3. Gray rot is a widespread disease of greenhouse crops grown in high humidity and poor air circulation. Fungal spores enter the plant through micro-wounds and form olive-green ulcers, which gradually encircle the plants and cause their death.
The spread of infection hinders the frequent ventilation of the greenhouse, a decrease in humidity below 85%, antifungal treatment and removal of diseased plants. For small lesions, it is permissible not to cull the pepper, but sprinkle the hearth with gray rot with a mixture of copper sulfate and lime (in a 1: 2 ratio). It is also recommended to grow resistant varieties: for example, sweet pepper "Cockatoo".
- 4. Dry rot most often develops in wet and hot weather. On the stems and leaves of the plant, fairly large brown concentric circles appear. Sweet peppers gradually die off.
When the first signs appear, treatment of plantings with copper-containing preparations is required. For prevention purposes, sustainable varieties of new selection are recommended (for example, Winnie the Pooh sweet peppers), presowing seed treatment and crop rotation.
Viral diseases.
Sweet peppers suffer from the same viral infections as tomatoes: the virus of circular (soft) spotting, tobacco mosaic, spotted wilting of tomatoes. In appearance, these diseases are difficult to distinguish from fungal or bacterial, and they are easier to prevent than to treat. For prevention, follow these tips:
- use only healthy, proven seeds;
- dress seeds before planting;
- discard weak or diseased seedlings;
- treat seedlings every seven days with a solution of skim milk until they land in the ground (for 10 liters of water - 1 liter of milk and 5 drops of iodine);
- observe agricultural technology (sweet peppers should receive the necessary amount of light, heat, moisture and nutrition), use preparations (growth stimulants, microelements) that increase plant resistance;
- Observe crop rotation (related nightshade crops should be grown in the same place no more than once every 4 years).
Bacterial diseases.
To date, more than 80 bacterial infections of cultivated plants are known , in bell peppers bacterial cancer, black bacterial spotting, soft bacterial rot and bacterial wilting are more often observed. The source of infection is almost always infected seeds or plant debris left over from last year. Prevention measures are the same as for viral diseases (except for milk treatment).