Help!
My sweet banana pepper plants recently (in the last two days) began getting some of their leaves chewed. Not too bad yet but I'd like to know what's the best thing to do. The only thing I could see was a very tiny white looking flyish thing on the underside of a few of the leaves. Could this be chewing my leaves? Is there a way to treat it?
I grew these peppers from seed and the plants have 5-10 small to peppers on each and more flowers. They're about 15" high and otherwise seem to be in good shape.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Flip
What's Chewing On My Banana Pepper Leaves
photo please
Here's a picture of the plant
The only two problems I have ever had with leaves being eaten on pepper plants were Japanese Beetles and Slugs. If I am seeing your picture correctly the rounded or scalloped edges on the area being eaten sure look like slugs or some sort of catapillar. Stopping slugs is simple. Put a ring of sand on the ground around the plant stem. Slugs will not cross the sand to get to the plant. For catapillars the least toxic solution is to spray the plants with BT which will attack their digestive system causing them to die. Those little white flyish things you describe are probably Whitefly. The do not eat the leaves but suck out plant juices much like aphids. To casue any damage they would have to be present in large quantities and any garden insecticide approved for peppers will take care of them.
Rich
This message was edited Mar 20, 2005 8:17 PM