Mottled leaves on sugar peas

7 years ago

I am attempting to grow Burpee Mammoth Melting Snow Peas indoors. They are growing reasonably well, but this morning I noticed the leaves are becoming mottled. Is this normal? If not, what's wrong and what can I do about it?

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Comments (10)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
what is you light protocol???

you arent making this easy ... i had to go to your members page.. to find your blog page .. to get even the least scintilla of facts about this whole thing ... and when i make my way down to the 11/19 entry.. i see the weirdest light set up i ever saw.. lol ... and dont get me wrong.. someone has to try new things ... do keep track.. of the difference between the plants on the ends.. closer to the lights.. versus those in the middle.. which sooner or later.. will perhaps suffer ...

how warm is it in your basement .. inside the gizmo .. both when the lights are on.. and when they are off .... and is there any relation to what you are seeing.. and last time you opened it up

frankly.. it looks similar to cold damage in late spring .. when i get veggies out in the garden too early ...

i also wonder about your little pile of fert in each pot ... but i am banking on a temp issue.. rather than fert/humidity or ... well.. i dont know about the lights ...

consider your base variables for growing a healthy plant.. and one of them.. has to be the culprit ....

BTW.. how cold does the floor get??? cold roots are not happy roots.. with a summer producer ...

ken

ps: let us know who many extra hits you get.. now that i linked you.. lol ...

Here is a link that might be useful: link
cpeds
7 years ago
Thank you, Ken, for the response and for putting in so much effort! I certainly didn't expect that level of effort. I was hoping the photo would be enough to determine and if not I expected to have to answer questions. I wasn't sure what would be relevant.

I have been toying with the idea of trying indoor aquaponics, just for the heck of it. However, in order to do that, I need to know how much light I need and I'd like to see that with my own eyes so I really understand it. Therefore, I am running an experiment.

The lights are vertical and on the ends of the row instead of from above, that way each plant gets a consistent amount of light over its surface and plants further from the end get less light. The idea is that if any survive and produce food I can see how far from the light source they can do so.

I'll measure the temperature at multiple spots, including the floor, and post that info tomorrow.

The lights are currently on for 14 hours and off for 10.

I removed the fertilizer yesterday. It turned moldy. Perhaps that is the problem? I put in less than the instructions said, but it was clearly too much.
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The little gnatties like to feast on dead and decaying plant matter, and love it moist. Yep that 'covermoss' is prone to sheltering and keeping a colony of the little buggers. I clean up my plants and keep them 'clean' all the time (old leaves removed and no debris left in the top of the pot) and that helps some on not ever seeing them. I housesit for someone and she always comments when she comes back that I have cleaned up and cleaned out every one of her plants... she always has problems with various disease issues and if she would just CLEAN UP she'd have a lot less problems. Also, remove the trash immediately... she would have this big rolling garbage cans and wouldn't empty them for months on end. I remove my greenhouse trash when I'm through and ready to go back to the house. If I run into something like mealy bugs, that gets carried out immediately! (a local nursery has issues with it, anything you bring home from there has to be isolated and cleaned up) Between that friend and myself we have fought this war for fourth winter. I am now 'clean' and she is still having issues (I have also tossed a few plants to stop the infestation and she won't... so she keeps breeding more). If you get mealy bugs in your house and your houseplants; second worse is spider mites; you will have a long and hard one to get that one cleaned up. First picture, if you remove the few leaves you find and remove them from the area then wash up, you will probably get it right there. Missing one fleck, you will find first or second picture in 1-4 weeks. I don't spray because a lot of sprays they seemed to ignore; I killed the plant along with the bugs; and in my greenhouse I am doing semi-aquaculture and sprays/chemicals are not a good thing around the fish. I can tell you insecticidal soap has never seemed to work even if I pretty much drowned the plant in it and it usually has killed the plant at that level. I do 'clean up plants' and 'toss badly infected plants pot and all' ... at times I can find a part of the plant that is almost clean, hand clean a few small flecks off, and put it into an isolation cutting cup-and toss the main plant. In a few weeks either it has gone rampantly infected in which case I toss the whole cup, or it's clean yet and rooted so I can pot it up. I've cried over some plants I've tossed, but. Upper Left, Usually you will see just one or two flecks, underside of leaves, near a leaf to stem join, by the time you see this much you'll be well into the battle. Size of very small salt grains if that big. Upper Right, Well engaged, this is trim this off and remove it; or if the whole plant looks like this it's going to be tossed. Lower Left, if you see these, about the size of two to three salt grains glued together in a string, you have major problems Lower RightMature mealys, about 1/8 inch long, (3mm), and I usually see the matures as a light gray like this. The smaller is white, the mature is this grey, and they are highly detailed. Start checking all the plants around this one and be very serious about check EVERY bit. All it takes is one tiny white cottony looking fleck....
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
Thank you, Ken, for the response and for putting in so much effort! I certainly didn't expect that level of effort.

==>> i was bored out of my mind .. lol ..

my experience with pots ... is that you use a potting MEDIA.. and fertilizers engineered for pot use ... when i did light stand stuff.. i filled 5 gal. milk jugs with water ... and used 1/4 tsp water sol per gal with every watering ... and 5.. so it was room temp with the soil .. i actually kept it on the light stand ... water sol.. is the simplest way to gauge what you are doing .... i would not use time release ...

when you start introducing ORGANICS ... you start contaminating your media ... [guess i am bored again.. lol] ...

by adding your eponema .. you now introduced perhaps a mold.. and maybe a fungus.. and maybe some bacteria.. who knows.. just another variable that you will have to mess with ...

but the thing i wonder most about.. is cold wet [beyond damp] potting media.. on a basement floor ... in winter.. wherever you are ... its been forever since i messed with peas.. but arent they prone to root issues.. ????

i actually used to run my lights at night.. to keep the plants warm when the furnace kicked down ... and off cycle was when the heat was up ...

last thing ... i was told.. that if your lights are on timers ... that the best time was 16 hours on.. 8 off.. and one on/off cycle during the off period.. will confuse the plants into thinking you are running the lights 24 hours a day.. and that you will see increased growth ... since my timer had extra cycles.. i did it.. and believed.. and have never looked into the science as to whether i was a sucker.. or its actually feasible. . lol ..

anyway.. good luck

ken
cpeds
7 years ago
I changed the timer so it is on for 16 hours and off for 8 now.

I measured the temperature, three hours after the lights went off. The ambient air was 69 degrees and the soil was 65. I'll check again tomorrow while the lights are on.

I won't be adding that type of fertilizer any more. I'll find something I can mix in with the water.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
7 years ago
That's perfectly normal for many species of sugar peas. I grow some every year in the garden and I'd guess that about half the time the leaves are mottled exactly like yours. I've not kept records about the species; I like to try different ones almost every year.
cpeds
7 years ago
Thanks rihzo_1, it's good to hear that someone else has this mottled color with normal results.

Ken, I checked the temperature again, this time after the lights had been on for several hours. The ambient air outside the artificial greenhouse is 65 degrees, the light bulbs are 90 degrees, the air within two inches of the lights is 69 degrees, the air in the middle of the greenhouse is 67 degrees, the soil in the end pots is 63 degrees, the soil in the middle pots is 64 degrees.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
7 years ago
so.. i dont know what that means.. lol ...

just keep track of it.. i offered such as a variable.. but not as a variable that i know anything about ..

is the top of your gizmo covered.. you could probably get that heat up to a balmy 70 on the light ballasts heat alone for the cost of some plastic on top ..

or that might screw it all up.. lol ... by restricting air movement ...

i never looked.. but is there a forum for growing under lights???

i have had fun entertaining you.. take care .. and let us know how it all works out ... how many you actually get to eat ... vs the cost of electric.. and how much your harvest ends up costing you .... [of course the value of the fun you are having.. will offset all that]

ken
cpeds
7 years ago
Thanks for all your help. Everything you've said has given me food for thought. I'll reply again once I know the results of this experiment.
jean001a
7 years ago
As rhizo said, that sort of coloration is normal.
cpeds
7 years ago
Thank you, jean001a. It is good to know this is normal.

Mottled leaves on sugar peas

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