Odds are you won't see a pepper maggot, They lay an egg inside a pepper pod, 2 tiny holes near the stem. The maggot
grows inside the pods, then chews it's way out. Te holes are about 1/2 the size of a common pin.

Cutting the pod open, you should find some black frass (_hit)

This insect can only be controled with insect floating row cover. No Chemical option.

Thanks byron.

Should there be extensive damage inside the cherry pepper? Because there is none whatsoever. It's just like something chewed a hole in them and then left. Also, another thing that lead me to believe it wasn't pepper maggot fly, aside from having hundreds of other flies in my sticky traps but not a single pepper maggot fly, is that at least some of the holes look like they were chewed from the outside - in. I do have a lot of slugs in the garden, could it be them chewing on pods, or is pepper maggot really the only thing that fits these signs?

Anyone else going to chime in here? Anyone ever have slugs actually feeding on pepper pods?

I'm surprised and disappointed in the lack of response to my request for help on this forum. I guess this community is not as tight-knit or as generous as I'm used to in other forums I visit, where even experienced hobbyists still regularly respond to newbies' questions, provided they've made an earnest search in advance (which I did). It's a shame but I suppose I'll have to look for answers elsewhere.

timmu,

Maybe nobody on the forum has experienced same as you. Can you post pictures of the holes on your peppers?

I have had holes on the peppers due to sun scald or blossom end rot, but then the edges of the holes are black. My first ripe cherry pepper this season had a small hole on the blossom end. The edges of the hole were dry and the hole looked like the pepper had just grown too fast and cracked.

Last year I had a mouse eating the outer surface of some container grown jalapenos. It had tried the inside once and after that ate only the flesh without braking to the inside. Tomato hornworms seem to like pepper leaves, so maybe they like the green peppers too.

The low fruiting may be caused by too much nitrogen fertilizer or bad pollination. Has there been a lot of green growth without flowers of have you had flowers, which do not set fruit?

First time I grew peppers, I over fertilized them and also my soil was so sandy that the peppers wilted in the sun everyday. Peppers do not like to be too wet, but if they dry too much in the heat of the day seemed to prevent my pepper flowers to set fruit.

PErhaps pepper weevils?
http://comp.uark.edu/~pjmcleod/pepper/page3.html

i dont know anything about growing cherry peppers but am having the same probs as you.

i have 2 symptoms. one is the pin head sized holes caused by pepper maggots. i notice the maggots usually after picking about 3 days unless they pods start to seem rotten on the plant. these small holes can be overlooked and that is why i am not seeing most till they (maggots) have had more time to eat and grow. all i am doing is throwing out the infected pods as soon as i notice them.

i also have something that is putting pencil lead sized holes in other pods- thai dragon - golden cayenne and a few others. the only damage i see from these is holes. no rot not pest just a hole right throught the pepper. i have no clue what is up but it is NOT the maggots.

i think you seem to have my second problem. if you had the maggots when you get one that starts to rot you can the pod open and see the maggot.up to 1/2 inch in length... from what i have seen.

and

greetings form toronto... i envy you being to close to chilly chiles you lucky duck. ;)

Michael

Corn Maggot, tomato fruit worn or hornworm will chew on chiles

If it's a triangle shaped hole, might be a bird grabbing a bug .

i saw earwigs inside one of the holes today. probably opportunity and not the culprit but dont know for sure

Michael

I've been battling fruitworms on my tomatoes. They are a family of insects which attack a number of different vegetables, including peppers.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Fruitworms on Peppers

We're not ignoring your question. I suspect many readers are like me and once the thrill of spring planting wears off, we only check in every week or two.

You may have planted varieties that take more days to mature. I just checked for banana peppers, and it's 68 days from transplant to fruit, which isn't very long compared to 80-120 days for some varieties. You can check maturation dates which may be on your plant tags or you can find them on seed packs and the Internet. Also, it's still early in the season for you. I planted my various transplants in mid-May in zone 7, and the crops are just starting to produce in quantity. If you want high production, you might try the cayenne types.

Good luck. This forum has a nice group of people, but the traffic is sort of slow.

I had a similar problem with holes in peppers, also found an earwig in at least one; later found earwigs on all kinds of things, including in my onion stems and between leaves of amarylis summering on the patio.

I think it must have been an over population of earwigs, because I thought it was slugs first off and set out beer traps, which wound up full of earwigs. I set out with a spray bottle of soapy water after that, started spraying them off my pepper plants and anywhere else I saw them.

If you set out a couple beer traps, that might give you a better idea just what is damaging the peppers.

carefull you might catch me. LOL

Michael

i have hole in a few but i have so many i just toss the one's that don't look right.

hafarms

Reality is if you do something to kill whatever is in the pod. you can reduce next years populatiions

i do like hafarms
BUT
i have been putting mine in a plastic bag so they cant get out.
plus most pods i cut open to see how big the #$&@$%^@ has gotten... then i replicate him with my knife ;)

Michael

How do the worms get in there if the pepper is say green and no holes present? I can't imagine they are travelling through the stem leading to the fruit without any outward signs of damage....

Thanks to everyone who did respond.

As I suspected, the problem was not pepper maggot fly, nor any other type of caterpillar. Rather, it appears that nearly all of my pest woes this summer have been caused by the common garden slug actually munching on fruit from the exterior. I'd laid organic slug bait (Safer's) throughout the garden all summer when they attacked seedlings or my lettuce, but took about 5 weeks off recently, because I hadn't seen any damage and because my lettuce is done for the year. Now all of a sudden, I've lost dozens of tomatoes due to holes being eaten in them, and I've also started losing both sweet and hot peppers again. Last night I went out to try to catch the culprit, and not only were there dozens of them on my plants, but I actually caught 2 of them chewing holes on the same sweet banana pepper.

Boy do I hate them now. Garden slugs have cost me literally dozens of fruit this year, including practically my entire sweet banana crop.

the slugs must have had a good summer here also cause started with the same holes and found over 50 slugs one morning.
Michael

and thanks for coming back with update

I'm new to gardening green peppers and have also found a pencil-sized hole in all of my peppers this summer. Is it ok to still eat them?

My small plant had 5 peppers destroyed by some small bug that makes a hole in the black pepper (then pepper turns red - to tell me its messed up) after breaking pepper apart I saw a lil sub micro lil nat, and 2 or 3 lil sub micro lil worms + a lil puss inside of the pepper pod, which it killed. what is this?

I am in California - LA

another pic- I cut all good peppers off of plant and plan do do the Ortho or seven spray thing at night - what is this lil bug?

Pepper weevil possibly, maybe earwigs.

Just a suggestion, I'd stay away from broad spectrum pesticides like Ortho and Sevin. They end up doing more harm than good.

For a better identification, try the pests and diseases forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: click here

i saw a little micro fly and a lil micro worm come out of the pepper when I broke it in half - is that just something else?

I don't know what they have in CA, but, in IL I get holes like that from earwigs. Not sure about the fly/worm.

Dugweb: Search in google "pepper weevil pictures." Also "pepper weevil larvae pictures." Do the same for earwigs. See if any of the pics resemble what you found.

Kevin

well the small nat thing could be from a dying fruit (pepper)
I will search more, as of now i cut all fruit off of plant and moved plant 50 feet away from my other pepper plants just to be safe... I am tired of playing this pepper plant game, now i have a ghost pepper which is real healthy and starting to grow lil peppers, along with a scorpian plant which is doing realllll well. with a lil birds eye pepper which is sucking up the miricle grow and is dark green and doing real good... almost crazy for so cal right now.... so I dont want want was is going on on the lil black dragon tree thing to spread.... ya feel me?

Yep. I always thought it was earwigs up until recently when I found out the pepper weevil was very common in SoCal.. It might still be earwigs for me because I KNOW I have plenty of those and I've never actually seen pepper weevils in my garden, but there's all kinds of things out there at night that I don't know about.

Keep us updated on what you find out, please.

Post the pic in the pests and diseases forum. They're real good at identifying. Especially if you can get a nice closeup pic of what you found inside.

Kevin

This post was edited by woohooman on Sat, Jun 29, 13 at 23:59

i have a lil spider that has made his web in my pepper plant, and a... he is doing a fine job at killing lil weevels and other bugs as well, hell he has caught prob 7 lil bugs - lil beetles and others.... god bless the lil dude, he can stay, and will be a part of my plant... as long he trap lil bugs and eat them... god bless him! He will stay!

A spider is a great answer to a problem.. my other plants do not have one and...they and wish they did!