hi, all. my thai pepper plant (or possibly a vietnamese variant—not entirely sure) is exhibiting some odd bulges at several nodes; i highlighted a few of these in the attached picture.

the plant is in cold-weather dormancy, so i won't know how or whether the bulges will affect new leaf and pod growth later this year.

a cursory google search turned up nothing pertinent on stem diseases. hoping to tap into the expertise of the growers on this forum, please and thank you.