Sunscald can cause the sides of peppers to deteriotate but since you say it is happening to the sides you can't see then I assume it is on the side that is shaded. Not likely to be the cause.

Pepper maggots cause holes and damage to the inside of the fruit and can then be further damaged by secondary infections/pests.

Anthracnose is definitely another possibility.

Rodney

I did not see LoneJack's comment when I originally opened this thread and started typing my first reply. Great minds, eh? :)

Rodney

Thank you both for the replies!

I didn't see any bug damage or holes in the peppers at all, and the soft part of the pepper doesn't match the pics of anthracnose. I was slightly suspicious of sun scald on a pepper I saw yesterday.... I just ran out there in the rain (YAY!) and took a quick/crappy pic. Does this look like sun scald to you?

eta: I also researched pepper maggots and I'm happy to say I've never seen anything like that in my life. :)

Easy to tell it's sun scald as that's on surfaces exposed to intense sunlight.

Stink bugs will damage tomatoes and peppers like that too, and we get fruit flies here with maggots that tunnel through fruits. I've had peppers destroyed by those. The damage can turn to rot over time.

If it's maggots, when you cut the fruit open, you'll see the tunneling - and likely the maggots too.

Thanks, Carolb. I haven’t seen any stinkbugs this year, and I’ve never seen maggots in anything from my veg gardens. The pepper above was exposed to the sun on that side, which is why I suspected that was sunscald. I never realized that sunscald would cause a pepper to rot like mine have.

Thanks, everyone! Things in the garden will change now anyway — we finally had good rain yesterday and it broke the long spell of heat. It was 54F this morning!

Would be interesting to know the variety of peppers this is happening to. I have several varieties, in full sun, with temps 105F+, and I NEVER get sunscald.

Dan, up here it's unusual for us to get lots of sun and heat and no rain, but that's pretty much how it's been this season.

Anyway, I'm now convinced it's sunscald... here's another pepper and this side was facing south (toward the sun :)

But you said it's only with one variety of pepper. Which variety? Probably not one I ever grow. Would like to know what to avoid.

Bell peppers tend to get sunscald by far the most. I don't get it on Poblano or Japapeno.

These are a thin-walled sweet and I don't know the variety. I think the plants were just too small to protect the peppers they were trying to produce. The hot dry stressful weather has completely changed to something more normal here, so they should be fine now. Thanks, everyone. :)

I just grow Sweet Bananas and Habs, and I never see sunscald. Our sunshine can bore a hole in the ground, but my peppers stay pretty.