Common Pepper Plant Pests And How To Treat Them

Hey there, welcome back to Pepper Geek. Today I'm going to talk about some of the more common pests that you may encounter on your pepper plants. The pests that you encounter in the garden will vary depending on where you live as well as your climate. This is just a brief list of a few of the pests that you may see on your pepper plants and what you can do about them. So I want to start off talking about aphids. Aphids are a huge nuisance in the garden and many people have issues with them. There are thousands of different species of aphids and they come in all different colors and sizes and they reproduce very quickly so issues can get out of hand pretty fast. Aphids feed on the sap in your plant's tissues so you'll typically see curled or distorted leaves as well as a sticky substance called honeydew if you have an aphid problem. We actually have a whole video dedicated to aphids if you want to learn more about their life cycle as well as what we do to manage them in the garden. If you notice you have aphids on your peppers, one of the easiest things you can do is just dislodge them with a blast of water from the hose. You can also spray down indoor plants in the sink if your aphid problem is inside but we have found that the best defense against aphids is attracting those beneficial insects with a wide variety of flowers and planting a diverse garden. If you need to, you can use a horticultural oil or an insecticidal soap which damages the cuticles of the aphids as it comes in contact with them. But when it comes to this pest in the garden, we definitely prefer to wait it out a little bit, let those beneficial insects come in and kind of hold off on spraying unless we absolutely have to. The next pepper pest I want to talk about are slugs and snails. Slugs and snails can completely devastate young pepper seedlings. They typically leave behind large ragged holes in your plant's leaves or fruits as well as slime trails or fecal droppings. If you're looking to identify slugs and snails and see if they are a pest in your garden, it's best to do this at night when they're most active. Try your best to control the populations earlier in the season so they don't get too out of hand. When you're dealing with slugs and snails in the garden, it's important that you stay on top of weeding as well as making sure there's no debris around your gardens because this is where slugs and snails like to hide. And with that being said, this is also a good way to trap them. You can leave behind small pieces of wood or cardboard to attract the slugs and then catch them in the middle of the night and dispose of them. The most straightforward way of dealing with slugs and snails is to simply hand pick and remove them. However, you can also use copper tape, slug bait, or traps. If you are going to go the chemical route and use a slug or snail bait, I do suggest using one with iron phosphate. And you also want to encourage and welcome natural predators to your garden like birds and frogs. And you may have been startled once or twice by a snake in your garden, but they do eat slugs and snails, so try to remember that next time you see one. The next pest I want to talk about is cutworms. Cutworms are another nocturnal pest that can do a lot of damage to your young pepper plants. The chewing damage looks very similar to earwig damage or the damage from another chewing pest, but they're most commonly known to actually munch right at the stem of the plant, causing it to completely fall over. And this is actually where they got their name from. There are different kinds of cutworms. Subterranean cutworms feed on the roots and stems of plants. And if you're out in the garden at night and you're curious whether you've come across a cutworm, you can try poking it because cutworms curl up into a c-shape when they're disturbed. You can hand pick cutworms in the garden or you can create plant collars for your plants to help protect them from the damage. You can also use a biological insect control called Bt. And I do want to touch on Bt quickly because I do mention it for some other insects as well. Bt is a naturally occurring bacteria that produces special crystal proteins that act as toxins when they're ingested by specific insects. When a susceptible pest consumes the bacteria, the toxic becomes active inside of the insect's gut, which then causes paralysis and in turn causes the insect to stop feeding and eventually die. Now, this may sound kind of scary, but Bt is non-toxic to humans and it has no adverse environmental effects. And you can use Bt up to harvest on all edible plants. Now, it is worth noting there are many strains of Bt available and they target different pests. So when you're looking, you want to make sure you get the right strain of Bt to target the pest you want. Next up, I want to talk about beetles, specifically Asiatic beetles and Japanese beetles, because remember, there are good beetles too. Beetles are highly destructive in the garden and we had a huge issue with them last year. Japanese beetles are active during the day and they leave behind a lace-like damage on leaves where Asiatic beetles are more active at night. So knowing when the pest is active can help you determine what the pest is. So last year, Calvin built some clever beetle traps with a light affixed to a bucket of soapy water, because we did a lot of hand plucking of beetles last year to try and manage them, even though they really devastated a lot of our flowers and veggies. And there is a strain of Bt that is effective against beetles, so that's worth checking out if you have an issue in the garden as well. The next pest I want to talk about are stink bugs. And there are good stink bugs as well. Stink bugs is the common name for a lot of different insects. When we're talking about garden pests, the brown marmorated stink bug is the one that needs control. Stink bugs will damage the actual pepper fruits, but they will also feed on the leaves as well. They're active during the day and they camouflage themselves very, very well. Stink bugs have a very broad host range, so any crop that has fruit really is at risk of attack. You can manage them by knocking them off into soapy water or plant those flowers to attract those beneficial parasitic wasps. The next pepper plant pest I want to talk about is the European corn borer. And despite the name, it is not only in Europe, and they do not feed only on corn. The European corn borer is a nasty pest that is known to feed on the fruits of peppers, potatoes, and peas. Generally speaking, they tend to be more of a threat with mild and sweet peppers. So the hotter the pepper you are growing, the less likely the corn borer will be a threat to your plant. After the adult moth lays its eggs, the larvae enter right underneath the stem cap of the fruits. And entry of borers into plant tissues facilitates the entry of plant pathogens as well. Typically, the entry holes are marked by an accumulation of a brown sawdust-like material. And unfortunately, this is often the only indication that a pepper is affected until several weeks later when the fruit begins to rot. And this is one reason we do recommend always cutting your peppers in half before you cook with them. Beneficial insects like lacewings and ladybugs are good to control the European corn borer. And as you guessed it, there is a strain of Bt available for it as well. And I just want to touch briefly on a few more pests that didn't really affect our peppers but affected other crops in the garden. Whiteflies are sap-sucking insects that affected our broccoli more than our peppers. They have many natural predators like ladybugs, spiders, and lacewings. And you can also use an insecticidal soap if you have to. Next is hornworms. And these are caterpillars that get their name from the horn that is protruding from their behind. They are often seen on tomato plants but they're not picky and they will feed on other nightshades like peppers. Green lacewings will feed on the eggs and predatory wasps will actually feed on the grown hornworms. You can also use Bt or spinosad. Pepper weevils bore small holes into your pepper fruits and then they lay the eggs inside and hatch and eat the pepper from the inside out. They are a serious pest. Luckily, we've never had an issue with them. They're more common in the southern U.S. So what are we doing in the garden this year to help control pests? First, we're going to be planting tons of flowers per usual. We have a ton started behind me to help encourage all of those beneficial insects to come help us out. We're also going to be using row covers early in the season to help protect the plants from any pest damage. And we have a variety of different Bt's that we can use to target specific pests and we can use insecticidal soap if we really have to. So leave a comment and let us know what pests you dealt with last year in your garden and what you did to treat them. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. Pepper weevils are boring pests that are- they're not- they're not boring. They bore holes.