Yellowing New Growth - Green in the Middle

[organicness]

Hey all,

I've got an issue that's got me stumped. These plants are outdoors, full sunlight from when the sun rises to when it sets. Soil pH is around 6.3. The bed was amended with biochar, peat & ProGro 5-3-4 ( http://www.norganics.com/products/fertilizers/progro.html) fertilizer at their recommended rate for veggies. All plants I have outdoors (a good number of 'em) were also lightly sprayed with iron sulfate about 2 weeks ago.

Now, 4 plants are showing this symptom, the rest are not. They're in the same bed with tomatoes and other canna, but nothing else is showing this kind of deficiency. It is ONLY appearing on new growth. The rest of the growth is decent, not as super green as other stuff in the bed, but not abnormal.

Any thoughts?

 

[WalterWhiteFire]

Looks like a micro def of some sort...Iron or zinc or something. Consult the deficency chart! How are you measuring soil ph? Cuz if they are in the ground and you cant get run off its tough to get an accurate measurement. Did you put lime in your soil mix? Peat is super acidic. Could be throwing off your ph. Oh wait are you using High ppm tap water? If you are it could be an iron toxicity.

 

[organicness]

I take a small sample of soil and let it dry in the sun, then mix it with 7.0 pH RO water and measure that pH. Shouldn't be an iron deficiency as I had just foliar'd with iron sulfate when this issue first showed it's head, and it hasn't gotten any better. And no, no lime in the mix. The soil in that bed has been in there for a few years.

 

[LexLuthor]

I take a small sample of soil and let it dry in the sun, then mix it with 7.0 pH RO water and measure that pH. Shouldn't be an iron deficiency as I had just foliar'd with iron sulfate when this issue first showed it's head, and it hasn't gotten any better. And no, no lime in the mix. The soil in that bed has been in there for a few years.

He said iron toxicity, not deficiency. Deficiency means the plant is lacking in a specific nutrient, toxicity means the plant is abundant with that nutrient and has too much of it.

Anyways, this is a tough one because the chart I use only shows deficiencies for every nutrient except N, where it shows both def. and abundance. Based on my chart your issue resembles N def. the closest, but I don't think it is N def. because you said it's only on new growth and N def. will show on the bottom half of the plant 1st, not only on new growth. My conclusion is somewhat, well, not a conclusion because I cannot pinpoint the problem. I think you should give your plants plain Ph'd water for a week or so and stop the foliar spray's, just to see how things develop, then if it gets worst you can narrow it down to a def. because you know its not the Ph based on you giving it perfect Ph water everytime and it is a def. because you haven't been feeding it for a week.

Now if you have been giving them plain water this entire time then it could be the ferts you mixed in with your soil, either you don't have enough or you have too much, but honestly the foliars should stop because you don't want to give your plants a whole bunch of iron, its just not necessary, if your soil has any iron then thats probably enough, you don't need to give them more with foliar spray's.

Sorry for rambling on and if I confused you then I'm sorry about that. If you need me to clarify anything I said just tell me, good luck.

 

[organicness]

Right, I know what a deficiency is vs a toxicity. He said could be an iron deficiency in the beginning of his post, which is what I was referring to.

I've quit the foliars and am just watering in my regular water. Being outside in a big garden bed, it's tough for me to drag out 80 gallons of RO water. Plus it's just weird that there is only 1 strain that this happening to and the rest are doing just great.

The yellowing is still happening, but the tips of the 4-5 day old growth are getting much greener, but the newest growth is still coming out yellow. eh... we'll see what happens I guess. Thanks all.

 

[LexLuthor]

Right, I know what a deficiency is vs a toxicity. He said could be an iron deficiency in the beginning of his post, which is what I was referring to.

I've quit the foliars and am just watering in my regular water. Being outside in a big garden bed, it's tough for me to drag out 80 gallons of RO water. Plus it's just weird that there is only 1 strain that this happening to and the rest are doing just great.

The yellowing is still happening, but the tips of the 4-5 day old growth are getting much greener, but the newest growth is still coming out yellow. eh... we'll see what happens I guess. Thanks all.

My bad, I didn't see his 1st reference to iron def.

About the new yellow growth, some strains just have light or yellowish growth. Maybe its something you shouldn't really worry about, expecially if it greens up within a week.

 

[homebrew420]

feed them with a liquid nutrient. Maybe hit them with a general micro food. It really looks mostly like a Zinc def.
especially if on the new growth. Tough to say. It's not iron IMO

Peace

 

[organicness]

So, I sprayed with about 1000ppm of Calcium Chloride and the issue is going away a few days later. :)

 

[LexLuthor]

So, I sprayed with about 1000ppm of Calcium Chloride and the issue is going away a few days later. :)

Good shit, I just looked through my notes and I noticed something that could of helped you, but you already figured it out. Basically it said "if def is on new growth it could be related to iron, zinc, manganese, copper, boron, chlorine, calcium or sulfur, if def shows up on old growth the problem could be related to N, P, K or Mg. Since you figured out it was Ca and it was on new growth, I'm glad you fixed it, but at the same time that means I'm not writing down notes that are incorrect :) Good luck with the rest of your grow.

 

[organicness]

lol! Always nice to know things aren't done in vain, eh?