Last weekend, during Christmas I visited my step brother chili pepper commercial garden. He used fertigation system for his plants, using 18 liter (4.75 gallon) polybag and cocopeat as soil. As he is currently in between season, I have the chance to see how he start the seed using 104 tray and had the chance to talk about growing chili. I remember that chili and tobacco share the same diseases so I used this chance to ask him on regular diseases infecting chili plant. He says that the usual diseases infected the plant is the mosaic virus. I do have issues with mosaic virus so I ask him how do they get rid of it.
This is the part where it get interesting, he says that if the plant infected with mosaic virus, they just threw it away. But they still used the same bag, and the same soil for the next season. He has been using the same bag and soil for 2 years now, and only adding the cocopeat to top up. I was surprised because before this I thought the virus can live in the soil for up to 20 years!
He add that, after getting rid of the infected plant, he sterilize the soil with bleach (Clorox) 1 ml per 5 liter of water. After soaking the soil with the solution for one night, he rinse the soil using swamp water to get rid of the bleach, and replenish the soil with micro organism. It was really easy, and he said that he have been using this technique with no problem.
Now I know this solution might not be useful for growing in the garden, but I did have some plant that I grow in the pot. I used the same soil from my last grow, but it have been growing something else for the past season. I used the soil again, adding only compost, and manure and I plant tobacco again. This is the soil where all of my tobacco plant infected with mosaic virus last time I grow tobacco in it. But this year it seems like the virus have gone. My potted plant is definitely bigger than my garden plant, currently, but it still give me a massive leaves. I have 20 plants in the container, and only 1 so far being infected with mosaic virus. I will update the picture here later after work.
I think, the soil I used might be dead of virus because of my climates. The degradation of organic particle in soil are much faster. Just like my compost heap, if I turned it regularly, I can get mature compost in just about 2 months. Maybe someone with problem in their soil, such as Charly who struggle with PVY can consider sterilizing the soil to get rid of it. I searched online there are plenty of way to sterilize soil, from torching the soil to using hydrogen peroxide. All that's left after sterilizing the soil is to add microorganism to the soil afterwards.
This is the part where it get interesting, he says that if the plant infected with mosaic virus, they just threw it away. But they still used the same bag, and the same soil for the next season. He has been using the same bag and soil for 2 years now, and only adding the cocopeat to top up. I was surprised because before this I thought the virus can live in the soil for up to 20 years!
He add that, after getting rid of the infected plant, he sterilize the soil with bleach (Clorox) 1 ml per 5 liter of water. After soaking the soil with the solution for one night, he rinse the soil using swamp water to get rid of the bleach, and replenish the soil with micro organism. It was really easy, and he said that he have been using this technique with no problem.
Now I know this solution might not be useful for growing in the garden, but I did have some plant that I grow in the pot. I used the same soil from my last grow, but it have been growing something else for the past season. I used the soil again, adding only compost, and manure and I plant tobacco again. This is the soil where all of my tobacco plant infected with mosaic virus last time I grow tobacco in it. But this year it seems like the virus have gone. My potted plant is definitely bigger than my garden plant, currently, but it still give me a massive leaves. I have 20 plants in the container, and only 1 so far being infected with mosaic virus. I will update the picture here later after work.
I think, the soil I used might be dead of virus because of my climates. The degradation of organic particle in soil are much faster. Just like my compost heap, if I turned it regularly, I can get mature compost in just about 2 months. Maybe someone with problem in their soil, such as Charly who struggle with PVY can consider sterilizing the soil to get rid of it. I searched online there are plenty of way to sterilize soil, from torching the soil to using hydrogen peroxide. All that's left after sterilizing the soil is to add microorganism to the soil afterwards.