HELP! What's going on with my green peppers?

[lorax]

I was most alarmed this morning to find that half of my green pepper plant had wilted away, leaving only the other half healthy and whole.

I've never seen anything like this before, morevoer that the only plant in the pepper patch that wilted was the one I harvested from yesterday, using sterilized stainless steel scissors, and only the half I harvested from has wilted.

What's going on?!?!?

[img]https://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh196/HabloPorArboles/DSCN4523.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh196/HabloPorArboles/DSCN4522.jpg[/img]

[soil]

did you examine the stem? any holes? spots? anything out of the usual.

[lorax]

That's what's fuddling me so completely. Apart from the scars I left behind from harvesting the two fruits, they look just like they did yesterday before picking. There are no obvious or even subtle holes, no insects visible, and I'm too high up for Fusarium to be an issue.

[Kisal]

Bacterial wilt, maybe? One of the characteristics is that the plant wilts suddenly, without yellowing of the leaves.

[lakngulf]

It looks like the disease/wilt/whatever that happened to some of my tomatoes. Side by side, a good plant and one that has hit the wall. Sadly though, the good plant eventually bit the dust too. Not sure about peppers but for tomatoes about two years in same soil, and that is it.

It is interesting in a way (though sad). It is like the roots are kicking along and then hit a spot in the soil that has the disease. Then the next plant will get there. The good thing so far is that okra seems to grow well even in the soil that is not good for tomatoes.

Can someone graft some okra roots to my tomatoes?

I have included a picture of the beginning of the die, and the plants once pulled out of the ground. As you can see they had produced some fine tomatoes, but died in the process

[img]https://i854.photobucket.com/albums/ab104/lakngulf/G2010June/Garden_June039.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i854.photobucket.com/albums/ab104/lakngulf/G2010June/Garden_June031.jpg[/img]

[HangOn]

Hi Lorax, this has only ever happened to mine (over many years) due to a breakage of the branch, caused by picking or wind damage. I stake each plant to help against the weight of the fruit breaking branches as well. This is probably not your problem here, as you sound like your keeping a close eye on them.
But hello in South America lorax.

[slyguy]

hi, I had a cayenne plant last year in a container that produced like crazy until very quickly the same thing you show happened. about 1/3 of the plant, right in the middle looked ultra pale and sickly and dying off. exactly like pictured. it never produced anymore from those branches but the rest of the plant continued. it was strange and I'm also interested in what it could have been.

[annastasia76]

the only time my plants have ever ended up looking like that over night was when the gophers had eaten the roots, does the plant still have it's roots??

[GardenRN]

I'm just throwin' this out there......aliens.

[JZydowicz]

You can check for signs of a bacterial wilt as the cause by cutting open the stem of the infected part. (Sorry if you already know this) Put the cut top and bottom pieces of the stem together and pull slowly apart, checking for any stringiness or gummy substance. If you do see it, that's a mass of bacteria and the goop they produce. If you don't see it, besides using a microscope, it's difficult to say what killed the plant. But as someone said previously, if you're giving the plant plenty of water, yet it looks wilted without browning, something must be blocking the vascular system, especially since half the plant seems unaffected yet.

[lorax]

And continues unaffected. I took off the wilted branch (how disappointing - there were dozens of flower buds on it...) and didn't find any evidence of bacterial blockage, and I'm not about to uproot the healthy half of the plant to check the root situation. I do have beetles in my garden beds, so it may have been grubs, but I doubt that since they normally go after my bush beans instead.

I'm with GardenRN - aliens.

[applestar]

Late last summer, I watched a squirrel climb a multi, small-headed sunflower after the seeds. The plant took the weight up to about 1/4 way from the top, then it slowly bent over and CRUNCH, fell over, breaking off/tearing down that particular side branch with 3 or 4 flowers on it.

I thought, OK, I'll give THOSE to the squirrel and was going to let it go, but the darned thing started to climb ANOTHER plant. Since I grew the sunflowers for the lightweight birds -- finches and cardinals -- I stepped out and told it what I thought about that idea.

Maybe something similar happened -- a heavier bird or an animal.

[lorax]

Could be. No squirrels at this altitude, and my cats keep the rats out of the garden, but we do have Giant Thrushes, which are easily the size of crows and which seem to think that the garden is their own personal smorgasbord. I'm constantly chasing them out of the plum trees.