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Need help diagnosing issue: sudden yellowing and browning

Y

Yani

I went away on Friday for a weekend trip and bottom watered my chili plants that were doing exceptionally well and showed only some edema on the jalapeño variety. I came back Sunday evening shocked to discover two of the jalapeño variety looking ghastly pale yellow. The soil was absolutely dry and so I thought they were stressed from a lack of water. I filled them up and now after two days they have gotten worse and are showing some browning and the leaves are dropping/falling off. This is what one looked like on Sunday:



From the looks of it it would almost say it looks overwatered but the soil was super dry and I've only watered them when there seems to be no water left in the container (picking it up and feeling practically empty by weight).

I decided to flush on Monday and see what the pH and ppm was on the runoff: 6.5 and 190ppm considering that is with tap water with a pH of around 7 and ppm of 55.

I transplanted the other peppers into their growing containers and all seemed to have roots that were outgrowing the container. Not sure if this is a factor but would like to mention it.

Also the jalapeño variety is the only one showing these symptoms, except for one poblano who's small little cotyledon leaves have turned to pale yellow but nothing else.

I hope someone can help me out as I've invested a lot of love into these guys. Thanks!
 
I think i can see what looks like a bit of edema.  It has to do with the water flow in the plant and is caused by over-watering.  That plant in particular may need to dry out a bit longer than the other plants... it may have underdeveloped roots.  Plants with edema can recover really well... and can live with it.  I had nearly all of my plants get it in 2014 and they were fine.  ( I was over-watering by accident all the time while trying to rinse aphids off the plants)  Also... keeping a fan on them can help prevent this by dropping the relative humidity as well as forcing the plants to undergo transpiration at a higher rate, which means more water being consumed by the roots.
 
On a second reading... it sounds like initially the plant was in fact suffering from a lack of water (yellowing of the leaves), and then maybe you over-watered too much (edema and curled leaves... more yellowing).
 
The edema has been there for about 1.5 weeks with no signs of overwatering and then all of sudden these symptoms in a matter of a couple of days. Strange.
 
so frustrating. Hopefully the rest of the peppers do not succumb to whatever is ailing these guys. I'll be extra careful about the watering for now.
 
  That thing is root bound. I never let my plants get that big in a solo cup. There are only so many nutrients in a solo cup of soil. Where you feeding it?
 
Those leaves are not sick or overwatered , they are dead/dying.
I once lost plants like that in my kitchen from aerosol spray, apparently the solvents in the aerosol.
 
Come to think of it, i have also seen damage similar to that when I sprayed an oil based insecticide (cedar oil in that case at slightly too high of a concentration) and then put the plants back under the lights  (it doesn't "burn them"... it suffocates them, because the oil covers the stomata, preventing respiration/transpiration) 
 
SvtCobra, I was feeding them MaxiGrow at low ppm of 200-300. I agree I should have transplanted sooner but there was no time. Ironically I was planning on transplanting the day they got sick/started dying.

I appreciate the rest of the input. I can't think of what might have otherwise contributed to damage like that.
 
All of the leaves fell off of the jalapeños and some off of the Habs. However, I'm glad I didn't toss all of them (I did toss two of five) because they are sprouting some new leaves from the nodes where the others dropped. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope they pull through.

I'm stumped as to what might have caused this but. I had them in a cardboard box with the side cut out as a flap and the T5's hanging inside. Could the T5's have leaked some gas? Does this happen? Or could the lack of airflow in the box have "suffocated" the plants. Such a strange sudden reaction with no recuperation. Roots kept growing and look amazing. I have since transferred them to 5 gallon buckets with slightly moist soil.
Or could the plant edema have caused this?
 
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