Avoiding Sun Scald

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I always mean to post this and then forget...My husband started mounding loose straw around his pepper plants. He doesn't totally smother them but kind of piles it up all around them and sticks some in around the branches and he has about totally eliminated sun scald on his peppers while allowing the peppers to still get plenty of light. He also waters from the bottom with buried weep hose so that might make a difference as if you were watering from above, it might make the straw too heavy and encourage moisture diseases? He has to re-do it occasionally because we get some mighty big winds in Wyoming. This has worked better than anything else he has tried. Sun screen material is so darn expensive and my husband grows about 300 pepper plants every year.

[Blueaussi]

What kind of peppers is he growing that sun scald is such a problem?

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Originally Posted by Blueaussi

What kind of peppers is he growing that sun scald is such a problem?

The big ones like Aconagua, Heavy Weight, Chinese Giant, Giant Marconi and even some of the medium ones like Corno d Toro and Asti d Gallo. We get no spring...go from winter to summer in about a nanosecond it seems like. He grows his peppers in what is basically a 10 year old pile of horse manure and he grows GREAT peppers and the plants are so loaded, he has to use those small tomato cages for them (we get a LOT of wind and heavily fruited pepper plants are really vulnerable to breakage.) He also ties them to stock panel and he plants his peppers really close together for added support (which also helps with sun scald.) I have seen him have as many as 20 to 30 peppers on a Marconi plant and his pepperoncini have to be picked every day...they are just filled with peppers top to bottom. He sells at the Farmer's market and as we have a Latino population here (they came years ago to work the sugar beet fields) his peppers fly off the shelf. But yep...he did get sun scald beofre he started using the straw.

[Blueaussi]

Hm, I grow Corno Di Toro, and while I also use tomato cages to support the plants, I don't see that kind of sun scald with them, I usually only see it with some of the pimento types. Maybe it's the wind the helps expose the taller varieties out where you are. I couldn't use the straw around here because the humidity makes foliage diseases such a problem, but I was curious as to what varieties he saw sun scald on. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Blueaussi

Hm, I grow Corno Di Toro, and while I also use tomato cages to support the plants, I don't see that kind of sun scald with them, I usually only see it with some of the pimento types. Maybe it's the wind the helps expose the taller varieties out where you are. I couldn't use the straw around here because the humidity makes foliage diseases such a problem, but I was curious as to what varieties he saw sun scald on. Thanks.

Yeah...I was afraid of the moisture issue where you are. Here...we live in "Lizard Land"...INCREDIBLY dry. We always joke that when we die, all we have to do is go lay down somewhere outside and we will be naturally mumified! I have 200 orchids indoors and we run three humidifier 24/7. Wood stove dries them and us out. And you may be right about the wind and the sun scald. We sure get enough get it. My folliage also may not be as luxurious as yours is in a humid environment? now I have a friend who does not have a huge garden...she makes little hats out of cheese cloth and clothspins them on hers (looks like a row of midget nuns... )

[montanamato]

Sun scald happens here too...high elevation, hot temps, wind, almost no humidity....I try to plant my peppers very close and often under tomato plants...The cool summers when nothing else is producing always has the peppers doing best...I do not sell to market so sun scald is not a big deal, but the sheltered peppers produce better than the wind whipped ones...I never water enough to keep straw down and it quickly leaves the area!

Jeanne

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Originally Posted by montanamato

Sun scald happens here too...high elevation, hot temps, wind, almost no humidity....I try to plant my peppers very close and often under tomato plants...The cool summers when nothing else is producing always has the peppers doing best...I do not sell to market so sun scald is not a big deal, but the sheltered peppers produce better than the wind whipped ones...I never water enough to keep straw down and it quickly leaves the area!

Jeanne

Jeanne, You probably get even more wind than I do and we also plant them very close together. The wind here can be an incredible pain the hind end! I had one year, the second week in June, when my tomato plants were about 2 to 3 foot high, we got this horrible wind that blew all day and it took ever single leaf off of them. They eventually recovered but I had poor/late fruit set and ended up ripening nearly every single tomato indoors because they were so late. No matter where ya live, I guess it is always something!

[montanamato]

Brokenbar....My husband grew up on the South fork, outside of Cody...We also spent 2 years in Clark WY about a decade ago....The school roof was ripped off in one of the wind storms while we lived there...

Jeanne

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Originally Posted by montanamato

Brokenbar....My husband grew up on the South fork, outside of Cody...We also spent 2 years in Clark WY about a decade ago....The school roof was ripped off in one of the wind storms while we lived there...

Jeanne

Oh yeah...Cody gets hellashish wind as does Clark. Setting in those canyons, that wicked wind just rockets down into both towns. I have flown out of Cody in one of those prop planes to Salt Lake to catch another flight...I am not religious but I very nearly became a convert!
That wind threw us all over...threw the Flight attendant right down on the floor and my Husband, who has a cast iron stomach lost his breakfast.
I have flown all over the world and never been as scared as I was on that flight...I know I left claw marks in the chair arms!

Your husband would not recognise the South Fork...They have subdivided it and there are houses nearly out to Ishiwah...Two big retreats for the entertainment industry out there also. Cody has become Jackson Hole and nothing but wealthy Californians have moved in (and I am an ex Californian so don't harangue me!) 3 and 4 story houses with elevators clear out the North Fork past Wapiti and almost to the Park....Of course, most don't come here in the winter...!

[montanamato]

Brokenbar...We still have lots of relatives and a few horses in Cody , so we have kept up with the changes to some extent...My husband said growing up, they knew to never fly out in the afternoons, as those flights were fondly labeled the "vomit comets"....And I thought he was kidding....

Jeanne

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Originally Posted by montanamato

Brokenbar...We still have lots of relatives and a few horses in Cody , so we have kept up with the changes to some extent...My husband said growing up, they knew to never fly out in the afternoons, as those flights were fondly labeled the "vomit comets"....And I thought he was kidding....

Jeanne

BAAAWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!