Visited a Capsicum farm yesterday...

My wife and I stopped at a pepper farm and talked to the owner about soil and growing Capsicum in general. The farm was about 1 acre in size, possibly slightly more.
For fertilizer she (the owner) uses a 25-8-8 which surprised the heck out of me. I asked her if she uses any cow manure she said no, because it was too slow to start working.
The soil didn't look much different than mine and she said she didn't add anything more than fertilizer. While she and my wife chatted I walked around and inspected some plants. There was a white fungus on the underside of some of the leaves. Some of the plants didn't look too well with leaf spotting and some minor curl, but not much of that; far less than on my plant. She waters twice a day.
She did say something interesting; she said this years crop wasn't nearly as good as last years because of the ongoing heat wave (50 days of 37c - 39c). This confirmed for me that excessive heat does make a difference in overall plant health.
This farm is producing no less than 5 different varieties of peppers and nothing is done to stop cross pollination. On this farm the various varieties were side by side and in some cases intermingled. One patch had prik kee nuu and prik haum (hill tribe variety) mixed in together. My wife was given a handful of the prik haum, but growing the seeds won't produce a true cultivar; nuts!
I didn't learn as much as I was hoping, especially about soil, but it was an interesting visit.
Here's some pictures;

The farm house with a chili field in front;


The bigger field to the left of the house;


The left field from a different angle;