Marianne's Response

Why does my pepper plant have purplish stems and why do the leaves grow in weird shapes?

I planted four jalapeño hot pepper plants around two and a half months ago. Two of them are perfect, but the other two have issues. One of them is turning greenish purple on the stem part, which is more purple at times and turns to greenish too…is it normal or there is an issue? I am attaching a photo.

The last plant is uneven, seems like genetically defective (not sure what it is). It has whitish spider-like discoloration patches recently. Earlier this plant was perfect until it had 4 leaves and then all leaves come with some weird shape. Its growth is less as compared to all other three, which received same water, sunlight, food and soil.

Yesterday I saw the perfect two plants has patchy purple stems where they bifurcated…. What is this?

Posted by Mansi K on June 2, 2015

Marianne's Response

From the photo you sent the foliage looks fine on the pepper plants. The mature leaves will look different from the first set of leaves on a plant. As for the patchy purple stems that also sounds normal for pepper plants. If the plants have been outdoors at night and your weather is still cool the defective look to the plants could be due to cold night temperatures. Peppers like the nights to be above 50 degrees. Time will tell but I think once the summer heats up your pepper plants will be fine. Keep growing, Marianne Binetti

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