[CH] Thanks/cross-poll/damping off/root depth

MidNite RamBler (nkal@prometheus.hol.gr)
Thu, 5 Mar 1998 11:50:47 +0200 

I wish to thank a everyone who responded to my questions, both with private 
emails as well as posting here.

Brandon recommended "The Pepper Garden" as a must-have. Well I ordered it from
Amazon about 7 weeks ago and I guess it must be here *any* day now.

Jim Campbell mentioned that a Hab in the field grows pretty deep.
Jim, how deep is deep? More than 20" ?

Regarding the nuclear 0-61-0 fertilizer, everyone confirmed my hesitation and
adviced against it, at least for the early stages.

Instead , I applied a balanced 20-20-20. It's a beautyful deep turqouise(sp?),
in crystall form , water soluble fertilizer. I hope this proves to be ok.

And a few new questions :)

Regarding damping off. Is this when the stem gets eaten like a tree by a
beaver(I was a poet in past life :) like this __\_/___ (soil level)
                                                / \

and eventually fells to the ground?

Also, does this only appear where the stem meets the soil?

The reason I ask, is because this happened once and I thought someone 
accidentally had stomped over the pot and broken the stem, since the seedling
didn't look that dead to me :)

In my nirvana of ignorance, I managed to hold it up straight without completely
braking it and I added soil 1/4" above the "injury".
The seedling balanced between life and death for about 2 weeks when I got tired
and signed the euthanasia papers.

Yesterday I saw something on one of my Charlestons, that got me worried.
There was this ivoire (I was a painter in past life :) brown at the bottom,
"hard" spot on the lower end of the stem , but not as low as soil level, some
1/8" higher , and it didn't surround the stem. It was just on one side.
Well I took a razor blade and cut this melanoma until pure charlst flesh 
appeared. (don't try this at home, especially if you've had a few espressos
already :) Now after 24 hours there's no difference. Maybe the operation was
successful or maybe it was just wind injury. (first diagnosis - more like it).

And finally, how does one know whether a chile plant has been cross-poll from
a different one. I mean , even if you plant a hab 50 feet away from a Jal ,
you can't be sure that some bee or what ever won't make the route hab-jal,
are you? In fact , according to Merphy's law you can be certain that it will :)

So how do you figure whether the seeds from this years fruits are "pure" ?

Take Care

Nikos Kalofolias
nkal@hol.gr