Puckered pepper leaves
 

All of my pepper leaves are puckered like this. It includes plants in several locations and my thoughts, so far, are virus or thrips. It may be a nutritional thing though. I'm thinking that I may need to boost the nitrogen levels and don't think I have much to loose. Most plants are setting some peppers but I'm ready to kick 'em up or kill 'em.

Looks like damage from sucking insects to me. Treating any infestation would help. Sometimes overwatering can cause leaf edema which results in abnormal looking foliage as well so careful attention to watering as well. Fertilizer won't help with if these problems but maintaining good nutrient intake with a good balanced fertilizer with micronutrients is always good for plants. Look carefully at the undersides of the leaves, perhaps post a closeup of the undersides.
KarenO
KarenO

Did a search on the internet and it seems calcium deficiency can cause these symptoms. And I just used my last calcium nitrate.

Looks like calcium deficiency to me too. [URL="http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=480253&styleid=4"]See this thread[/URL]

But check for bugs too, you never know, different problems can look the same.

I've got plants like that and I know it's not Ca+ because I added dol-lime and their fertigation regimen includes Cal Nitrate. In my case it was thrips.

Check for thrips or mites or aphids or whiteflies or +....

Spray away with poisons-soaps-oils-alcohol, whatever is at hand to fight insects, chop off the gnarly growth if you see insects, since it likely contains future bugs in their egg/larval stages, and hope they bush out.

Some take it like a champ and put out strong new growth, some linger and die.

As others stated, give it all the micro-macro food so it can put up a good fight.

If it's a Ca deficiency and out of calcium nitrate, a quick way to get usable calcium to plants quickly is to dissolve a cup of dolomite lime with a teaspoon or two of white vinegar. Once dissolved add the mix to a gallon or two of water and water the plants with it. There will be free calcium in the water for the plant to uptake immediately, and the rest will break down in the soil over time.

If you don't have lime, I've heard you can use crushed egg shells and vinegar as well to create usable calcium.

I appreciate all the suggestions. Just had a friend order a 50 lb bag of calcium nitrate and in the meantime I'll spray for thrips--when it stops raining.

Just checked the tiny cupped leaves and found tiny, cream colored thrips scurrying around. Nuke time!

No N needed. My first thought was bugs, too. There are deficiencies that look like that, with the puckering, and that may be part of it.

Oh, I see you found the bugs. Ick.

Oh good. I was going to say tiny pest as a first guess having good green color...
Attacking right away and not waiting for Cal. is a good call.

I had aphids on my big healthy starts and near impossible to see as they hid deep down
in the new growth only. (similar puckered growth pattern as they grew out after a good bath)

Much younger plants but i clipped off main stem where the damage was on one as a
test. It recovered so well i did all of them. (also started another tray for insurance)

Pests can be hard to pinpoint as it is easy to miss a part of their life cycle. Following Gingers lead, i
keep one or two yellow sticky traps out as a 'heads up' for insect trouble.

I don't think mine would have survived had i not pruned. Yours may pull through being such larger
plants but pruning/clipping out damaged new growth often has a better outcome.

Most varieties are replicated so I may trim one of each back. Sprayed already-now I'm wondering if I need to target tomato flower clusters too. I am getting fruit set but thrips are disease vectors too.

I would worry about thrips spreading. I would isolate those plants. It's hard to save thrip ridden plants.

Since you have a thrip problem then you might want to check out symptoms of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus on peppers. My bell peppers and even a couple of my Jalapenos were devastated by the disease last year. I still managed to get a small crop but nothing like I should have had and the plants were all dead by the end of July so I missed out on the best portion of the pepper crop which is in the fall. If I had been aware of what I was dealing with at the time I would have started more plants to put out in the summer to give me something for the fall. The smaller plants that developed TSWV produced almost nothing and the larger ones did manage to produce some but no new peppers formed once the symptoms got obvious. I had seen this before on just one or two pepper plants and am very familiar with it in tomatoes but the symptoms are much harder to spot initially on peppers than on tomatoes.

I am definitely no expert on TSWV on peppers but I was able to identify the culprit that destroyed my peppers by researching pepper diseases online. If anyone is experienced in dealing with TSWV on peppers I wish they would chime in with some tips on spotting it early. Had I known what I was dealing with earlier it could have saved me a lot of work and worry trying to cure the incurable. Over the years I have become quite good at spotting TSWV very early in tomatoes but I am not sure what to look for in the early stages of TSWV in peppers.

I sure hope you don't have TSWV but if you do go ahead now and start some more pepper seedlings so you can get some peppers late in the summer and fall.

Bill

You realize you're enabling me to plant more pepper seeds. Not sure my wife will fall for it but it's worth a try.

Visual aids
 

Here's a few plants in a similar situation:


This one was doing excellent, and then not.
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This one is at the "intermediate" damage level
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From below
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Some plants take it in stride, like this Baby Aji Amarillo
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And in this one you can see [I]chinense [/I]vs [I]annum [/I]
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Inspections appear good
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thrips are bad news, period.