Lemon Drop bonchi

[tadytomas]

Hi, last year I made 4 bonchis, but one of them, my lemon drop bonchi died. I did grow LD again this year. Last week I cutted the plant down, but, the same problem as last year showed up.

The ends of branches and the end of the stem, where the cuts are made started to dry up and turned colour from green to brown/black. This year I tried to use healing balsam but so far I can see no difference comparing last year.

anybody familiar with this? thanks

[Fatalii]

Hmm.. it's always a risk that the plant might die... did you prune also roots properly?

And provided some extra light after cutting the plant down?

I have succeeded with lemon drop, it wasn't that hard to succeed with.

The easiest ones to my experience are many wild chiles and pubescences.

[tadytomas]

yes, roots were pruned, the plant was repoted from hydroponics, so it was in expanded clay. And I have my bonchis under CFL so light should not be the problem.

Last year, it was the same. The plant started to grow new branches, leaves, but the ends of the cuted branches and stem dryed up.

well, I will take some photos and post them here.

[tadytomas]

I am here with the fotos.. 

[kuje]

Looks like it's rotting. 

[Mayloa]

I'm gonna start out by saying that i only have little experiance with such harsh pruning. (mine was successful, it developed quite nicely and is still standing strong - but that was on a different variety)
But by the looks of it they are sitting in wet pots, especially in one of the photos.
You should bare in mind that the plant doesn't have any leaves to evaporate the water through when being cut back that much.
Therefore i'd suggest a drier climate untill new leaves have developed. (or a soil with very good drainage)
That could explain some of the rot that you are mentioning aswell.

Sorry about your plant, I hope it survives!

[PP]

I have a Lemon drop bonchi and it looks a lot like yours. I didn't even think that the dried ends of the stem and branches would be a problem. The plant is growing new leaves now and I think the drying has stoppep. My other bonchi is a Aji cristal and it doesn't have this problem. Might be because the LD is from hydroponics and AC from soil, and hydroponic plant need to get used to a diffrent growing environment. Let's see what happens.

[hlam]

This rotting is completely natural. If you prune a branch, everything above the furthest out node (the bit where new leaves will come from) will slowly die - this excess plant tissue is useless to the plant, because this tissue has nothing to carry nutrients to or from. However, everything below the furthest out node will remain alive and healthy, because it is required to carry nutrients to and from the leaves/branches growing at that node. Does this make sense?

[Mayloa]

Yep that does make sense, however that wasn't the case when i cut my plants back this season. My cut was about 5-10mm from a node and it's still sitting there today. (the tip of the branch/stem) This might vary from time to time or even variety to variety.

[tadytomas]

This rotting is completely natural. If you prune a branch, everything above the furthest out node (the bit where new leaves will come from) will slowly die - this excess plant tissue is useless to the plant, because this tissue has nothing to carry nutrients to or from. However, everything below the furthest out node will remain alive and healthy, because it is required to carry nutrients to and from the leaves/branches growing at that node. Does this make sense?

Thanks, this is the new foto of my LD and I hope, that this "rotting" will not continue. In summer I will cut off the dead part of the branch.

[jeQQ]

That is totally normal! Do not worry. If you cut the dead part it will most propably just die again.

[Legoinsinööri]

I'm quite sure he meant just cutting off the dead part. Dead won't die again Yes, it's pretty obvious that the plant stops supporting the part that has no use for it and is now "cutting it off". I'm not sure if the dead part will drop by itself and how fast if it will.

[masaiman]

I'm gonna start out by saying that i only have little experiance with such harsh pruning. (mine was successful, it developed quite nicely and is still standing strong - but that was on a different variety)
But by the looks of it they are sitting in wet pots, especially in one of the photos.
You should bare in mind that the plant doesn't have any leaves to evaporate the water through when being cut back that much.
Therefore i'd suggest a drier climate untill new leaves have developed. (or a soil with very good drainage)
That could explain some of the rot that you are mentioning aswell.

Sorry about your plant, I hope it survives!

Hm... Now there's an aspect that I had completely ignored. Now that I came to think about it, it might just be that my first bonchi experiment drowned... It suffered a massive bug invasion, and to save it I cut it down, changed the invaded soil and covered it with gravel to stop the buggers from multiplying. As a result to this the whole plant (which was a BST) rotted quite quickly... Seems u learn something every day...

[Mayloa]

Hm... Now there's an aspect that I had completely ignored. Now that I came to think about it, it might just be that my first bonchi experiment drowned... It suffered a massive bug invasion, and to save it I cut it down, changed the invaded soil and covered it with gravel to stop the buggers from multiplying. As a result to this the whole plant (which was a BST) rotted quite quickly... Seems u learn something every day...

Hehe, at least you got something good out of a bug-invasion

[jeQQ]

I'm quite sure he meant just cutting off the dead part. Dead won't die again Yes, it's pretty obvious that the plant stops supporting the part that has no use for it and is now "cutting it off". I'm not sure if the dead part will drop by itself and how fast if it will.

They will not drop. Or atleast mine hasn't! I've waited for a year now.