OK aphids, you killed myu pepper, now what will you eat?

Factual Questions
1

At first the aphid problem on my Habenero plant that was otherwise flourishing was sustainable. A little soapy water spray once in a while, no problem. Then I brought the plant inside to winter. The plant was still producing peppers like it was going out of style. But the bugs! I kept spraying. They came back worse every time! Finally, my plant was a disgusting bug infestation. I threw in the towel. "Ha! Eat all you want! You will be gone soon enough.

Sure enough. I now have a desicated brown skeleton of what once once a great pepper plant. The question is:

What possible evolutionary advantage could be made by a species that kills its source of food?

2

Well, remember that aphids didn’t originally evolve to eat houseplants cultivated indoors by humans in isolation from other plants. In most real-life entomological settings, bugs that destroy one plant (that is, utilize its nutrients with optimal efficiency) simply move on to another plant.

In fact, maybe that’s why your bug problem was manageable while the plant was outdoors: they could get to other plants (and aphid predators, whatever they are, could get to them), so they weren’t completely swarming your pepper plant the whole time.

3

Kimstu has good points. To add to it; I don’t know where you are, but pepper plants require long, light-filled days to flourish.

Some variables for success in overwintering peppers indoors:

If you dug up a large, fruiting plant, (or have a large potted one) and tried to overwinter it without long light days, or supplementary light from bulbs, it’s going to have some stress. It is trying to be friuitful and multiply under less than optimal conditions. The solution would be to cut back the plant hard, and let it hang on, but not producing fruit. Less stress. When winter is over, the plant can then be put outside, and will leaf out again, and produce peppers sooner than seedlings started.

You’ve found the downside of this; without enough light or cutback, the stress makes plants vulnerable to aphids and other pests. Just like when people are stressed out and susceptible to disease, plants are, too.

A big factor, too, is that people tend to not pay attention to plants during the winter months, just a normal case of non-observance, human nature; we wait until spring to want to love our plants . So, the neglect can result in underwatered indoor plants, stress again, which is prime territory for insect pests to move in.

Outdoors, in best conditions, the peppers have great light, water, and good soil to sink their roots in, and are healthy. Aphids may take out the new tender growth early in the growing season, but the plant usually recovers, aided by predators like ladybugs.

Honestly, aphids are incredible opportunists, utilizing new shoots of plants as food, and have an incredible reproductive pattern, asexual and sexual, and proliferate at the blink of an eye.

From my observation, though, they also are soft-bodied little sugar-steaks for other insects, who soon come and devour/balance them out pronto. The plants recover, and send out new growth, when in healthy growing conditions. No need to freak out.

Indoors, yep , a pain, because there’s no ecological balance, so you have to take up the slack and watch for infestation.

4

Yea, light in my apartment complex was at a premium. Even outside on the balcony, my plants were reaching. I probably should have cut it back when it was outside from what you say. It produced lots of peppers, but they were all really small.

5

When it comes to keeping aphids away from my beauties, I like to grow “sacrifice plants.” Sunflowers are really good for this, plus it’s fun to watch ants herding the aphids. And at the end of the season, the birds go nuts for the seed heads.

6

Hmm, could one solve the aphid problem by adding ants to your indoor plants?

7

The comments about stress making plants vulnerable to insects and disease are dead on.

I have to battle at least a low level of aphids and other pests indoors in my light garden every year, even though I spray plants before bringing them indoors. If you have just a few plants, you can keep pests down by spraying them with lukewarm water in a large sink or shower (a hose attachment works well for this), being careful to hit hiding spots under leaves.

As noted, outdoors there are plenty of other plants for aphids to attack once they’ve decimated one host plant. Indoors, they eat what’s available, even if it dies.

I also find it somewhat interesting to see ants tending aphids, but even more satisfying to spray them with horticultural soap and watch herders and “cows” perish. :smiley:

8

You mean like humans and the passenger pigeon? I mean, luckily passenger pigeons aren’t humans’ only food source, but people didn’t care they were eating the last passenger pigeons humans would ever taste, and the aphids on your Habanero didn’t know or care they were eating the last plant their descendants could ever inhabit.

I have a pepper from last year I over-wintered indoors too. I even have a picture of it.

Actually, it’s two different pepper types growing in one pot. I have a hard time with peppers where I live because of the cool climate and my property being mostly shady, but this one grew and pumped out lots of peppers.

I brought it inside last fall and within a week the bugs which were already living on it exploded. Aphids, mites, scale, you name it, it was on it. I even had a really weird stick-shaped caterpillar of some type on it.

I sprayed it with vegetable safe bug killer but that didn’t quite do it, plus the stress of bringing it inside did a nasty job itself. All the leaves started dying and falling off. I knew the plant itself was still alive though, and probably wanted to do a winter rest thing. I eventually took it back outside one afternoon, snipped off all the remaining peppers, trimmed the leaves and branches way back, sprayed it with the nasty industrial strength Ortho not-safe-for-vegetables bug killer and brought it back inside. I was careful to spray it again within seven days to kill bug eggs, too. After that I watered sparingly with plain water - no fertilizer - and let it rest. After a month or so it started pumping out new leaves & growth and now it looks even better than it did last year, and it’s got flowers all over it.

I’m not sure if I should eat whatever peppers it produces this year though because of the insecticide I used on it, although I doubt there’s that much remaining in the plant. If nothing else, I have seeds so I can always grow a new one.

Speaking of aphids, I didn’t even know until recently how many types and colors there are. I’ve got green, black, and yellow in my yard, each with its own plant preference. Nasty buggers.

9

You can buy Ladybug beetles by the pint. Used properly, you will no longer have an aphid problem. (Yes, there still will be the odd aphid).