All my pepper plants, save one or two, across species and varieties, are having this problem. The growing tips are sickly, drying, wilting and not growing.

The leaves at these tips have turned a dull, dark green, look lifeless, dry, leathery (not succulent) and feel limp. The emerging baby leaves are extremely small, needle like and crinkling (that word again).

Any formed pods at tips are limp instead of crisp and dull instead of glossy and some are falling off.

The flowers and flower buds at the tips, many are emerging as if to compensate, are lot more curled than the usual and dry and mostly abort at one stage or another.

The tips low down in the plant look good though.

It is as if water and nutrition are not reaching the growing tips from the middle up.

Why would this happen?

I don't think the pictures captured how sick the tips are, but here are a few.

Notice the many curled buds and very narrow crinkled baby leaves and the dull color to the leaves. It seems like a lot is going on hormonally at these points but the leaves, stems, are not growing out and up. They are stuck and then they die.

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