Growing problems

[bleugt]

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to growing peppers and I'm hoping someone can give me some pointers. My peppers have been doing great, however, the new leaf growth recently started curing and looking deformed. I have also had no peppers on many of my plants because of the flowers dropping. I'm not sure what's going on. Could his be caused by a deficiency? I'll add a couple pictures. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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[solid7]

If you haven't had any sudden temperature changes, it could be that your plants have run out of available nutrients. When was the last time you fed them, and with what?

Undoubtedly, you're going to be told almost automatically that this is a deficiency, and you need to add Cal/Mag. Or that it's a pest problem. But running out of plant nutrition often looks the same as the deficiency first mentioned. Calcium deficiency limits the ability of the plant to uptake nutrients, but obviously, no available nutrients can have the same net result. Being that you appear to be planted in ground, in Utah - according to your location - calcium deficiency doesn't seem the likely culprit.

So what changed?

Did you check the underside of the leaves for pests?

 

[JDFan]

My guess would be Broad Mite damage - check the leaves very closely for insects (they're tiny and hard to see so might want to get a magnifying glass ! ) - but could be something else like sun damage or herbicide overspray.

 

[Kikaida]

I was thinking herbicide damage as well. Any spraying going on near by?

 

[bleugt]

The soil is a "special" garden mix that I bought in bulk at a local nursery this spring. These peppers are the first plants to use the soil. The only thing I did about 6-8 weeks ago was use up some vegetable miracle grow leftover from last year. I guess it's possible that this could have caused some issues, but they looked great until the last couple weeks. I did spray them with a natural bug killer (Dr. Earth?) around the same time since something was eating the leaves but they have been great ever since as far as not being eaten. I also checked for bugs and didn't see anything under the leaves. I'll check again tonight a little closer to make sure.
 
Several of these (3 scotch bonnets specifically) have not produced any peppers. They keep blossoming but then they all fall off. Is this common? The heat has been steady around mid to upper 90's and I have a pretty strict watering schedule of every 3 days. Not sure if the blossoms falling off is a different sign, but its definitely frustrating. I'm definitely a newbie but I didn't seem to have this much trouble last year.
 
Thanks again!

 

[solid7]

Put down some composted horse manure around those plants. Like about 4" thick. Not the black cow stuff in a bag - unless you don't care what they pumped into those feedlot beasts. But if you have a local farm that's got aged manure, and they aren't raising the animals for food, go for it. Sheep, goat, horse, rabbit, it will all work.

I am tired of always trying to diagnose what's wrong with plants, so when I see this, and I verify that no pests are present, manure always seems to snap them out of it.

Good luck.