I finally narrowed down the main reason for my terrible bell pepper crop last year. After looking at page after page of pepper disease photos it became fairly clear that the main culprit was Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus although a couple showed some signs of fusarium wilt damage before the TSWV hit. I have never had such a large percentage of my peppers go from healthy and productive to sick and dying in a matter of a few weeks. So any of you that live in areas that get hit by TSWV on your tomatoes you need to look up the pictures of the symptoms of TSWV on peppers. Once the symptoms showed clearly there was no hope for a good crop from then on. It was just a matter of waiting for them to keep going downhill.
Had I known at the time the symptoms became obvious that I was dealing with TSWV I would have just pulled most of them and started some more seed for an attempt at fall peppers. This year if I see any plants develop the symptoms I will be ready with some replacement plants. I foolishly tried to cure them with all kinds of fungicides and fertilizers to no avail. When it first hit I thought the plants were getting some kind of weird sun scald from the intense heat that started in June. I tried shading the plants and it did no good at all just like everything else I tried. Just like on tomatoes the fruits that were already growing well made it to maturity without too much problem but the younger fruit and blooms did awful once the plants got sick. The TSWV also killed most of the new growth tips meaning the future was poor for any future fruiting. Also like tomato plants the plants that were already large and healthy when they got TSWV were able to withstand the disease far longer than the young immature plants.
Bill
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