Plant guide:🫑 Bell Pepper
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⚠ Moderate🩺
Growth
Blossom End Rot on Bell Peppers
Commonly affects: Capsicum annuum, Grossum Group (Bell Pepper)
A dark, sunken, leathery patch develops on the blossom end (bottom) of the fruit, sometimes affecting several fruits on the plant at once.
Potential Causes
- 1Calcium deficiency in the developing fruit, usually caused by inconsistent watering rather than an actual lack of calcium in the soil
- 2Irregular watering — alternating between very dry and very wet — disrupting the plant's ability to move calcium to the fruit
- 3Root damage limiting calcium uptake even when soil moisture is adequate
Solution Steps
- 1Water consistently and deeply, avoiding the dry-then-flood cycles that disrupt calcium transport
- 2Mulch around the base of the plant to help maintain even soil moisture
- 3Avoid excess nitrogen fertiliser, which can worsen calcium uptake issues
- 4Remove affected fruit, since the rot won't reverse, but subsequent fruit often improves once watering is corrected
Prevention Tip
Blossom end rot is almost always a watering consistency problem, not a calcium shortage in the soil — even watering fixes most cases without needing calcium supplements.
