Before we start displaying the various leaf patterns, you must understand some basics in order to diagnose this problem of nutrient deficiencies in plants and start the right treatment to save your plants. Because directly jumping in to adding too many supplements can burn or kill your plant.
Plant nutrients fall into 2 categories: macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are those elements that are needed in relatively large amounts. They include the three major ones – nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, that’s NPK and also sulfur, calcium and magnesium. Micronutrients are those elements that plants need in very small amounts, like iron, boron, manganese, zinc, copper and molybdenum.
Most of the times, except in container gardening, these nutrients may be present in the soil. So before adding supplements you have to diagnose your condition by checking these 3 problems or factors:
- The problem may be with the roots – not able to absorb or uptake these nutrients. This can be due to root disease or improper watering. Because these nutrients are taken up by the roots only in the presence of moisture.
- Soil PH may not be right. Most plants need a PH of around 6.0 for proper absorption of nutrients by the roots. Having this little PH meter will certainly help you rectify this problem. You can find related posts on altering soil PH.
- Pest attacks which can sometimes resemble the patterns of nutrient deficiencies, especially the sucking pests like aphids. Make sure you thoroughly examine your plants.
Now having said that, let’s jump
into identifying the various leaf patterns of discoloration and distortion and
diagnose this problem. But always Keep in mind that each plant variety is
different and may display different symptoms. And also the damaged leaves may not come back
to normal after treatment but the new leaves will certainly come out healthy
and lush after treatment.
Let’s start with:
- Nitrogen Deficiency: you will notice complete yellowing of the older leaves generally at the bottom of plants. The younger leaves are often healthy and green. This is because, nitrogen is a mobile nutrient which moves up from the lower parts of the plant to the growing ends as a compensatory mechanism and hence the older leaves donate nitrogen and show complete yellowing including the veins and the entire leaf surface. The solution to this is simply adding a good nitrogen rich compost like decomposed cow dung or horse dung. But before adding, please rule out the problems of improper watering and soil PH that we already discussed.
- Calcium Deficiency: Here the new leaves are affected and may show yellowing, distortion and even burnt tips due to necrosis or death of the tip tissues. Blossom End Rot (BER) seen in tomatoes and squashes is the best example of this. We have discussed this problem and treatment in detail in my previous post.
- Magnesium Deficiency: Magnesium is also a mobile nutrient and hence The older leaves first turn yellow at the edges and surface – called interveinal chlorosis, meaning yellowing between the leaf veins. The veins as you can see, stay green, giving the leaf a marbled appearance. Remember, Magnesium is the central most atom in the chlorophyll molecule which imparts green colour to leaf. Foliar Spraying or watering the plant with 1 teaspoon Epsom salt per litre of water will give great results.
- Iron Deficiency: Iron is an immobile nutrient and hence cannot be carried upto the younger leaves from older leaves for compensation. So the leaf yellowing is first evident at the tips or the younger leaves. The pattern is similar to magnesium – the interveinal yellowing. This is actually a common pattern and most often due to alkaline soil ph which prevents proper absorption of iron by the roots. Hence its also called as lime induced chlorosis. The treatment for this is actually rectifying the soil ph to around 6, if its alkaline. Another method to bypass this problem is foliar spray of a micronutrient solution or compost tea.
- Phosphorous and Potassium Deficiencies: These are very much similar and plants show stunted growth plus leaf chlorosis like leaves turning darker or purplish. But this is difficult to identify and depends on the type of plant. Isolated Potassium deficiency usually exhibits yellowing starting at the tip or the margin of the leaf with the center being still green.
- Last but not the least, you must be aware of a condition called YELLOW VEIN CHLOROSIS. Here only the leaf veins turn yellow while the rest of the leaf shows normal green colour. This usually happens in winter or the dormancy period due to reduced nitrogen uptake by the roots from the soil in low temperatures.
Now the Universal Treatment Solutions for all these problems:
You have two options: First one is Making The Universal Cocktail Fertilizer mixture.
And the Second option is Vermicompost – which is rich is almost all micronutrients. Adding a handful every 15 days will keep your plants healthy and high yielding.
Before I list out the remedies that really work, we will try to know the reasons or causes of this Blossom end rot disease in tomatoes.
The main
reason for this problem is lack of calcium:
Either calcium deficient soil or poor absorption of calcium from the
soil or Soil PH issues not allowing the absorption of nutrients.
So How do you treat this BER? If you think the soil is deficient in calcium, you might just think of supplementing this calcium by crushed or powdered eggshells or even calcium tablets or similar stuff. This type of application should be used for prevention of the disease and not for the treatment as this cannot happen instantly, because the plant simply cannot suck calcium from the soil as soon as you add it.
So, How to Stop this or Prevent this. Remember Always Prevention is better than cure. I conducted one simple experiment. I used my magic foliar spray solution on all my tomato plants once every 15 days and I kept one tomato plant as a control and did not spray anything on this plant. And this plant as you can see developed blossom end rot in tomatoes. The plants who got their calcium and other nutrients through foliar spray never developed this problem. I will let you know the recipe for this magic foliar spray solution now.
Also other points to remember to prevent this problem are:
Sowing seeds on right time. Just at the end of Spring is the perfect time to sow tomato seeds. Thats in feb or march first week.
Well now you can checkout the recipe for the foliar spray liquid to treat tomato blossom end rot problem. I will quickly list out the ingredients one by one and quickly explain the benefit of each of these components.
1. Water: Nothing to explain about this universal solvent. We will formulate this recipe for 1 liter of water.
2. Milk: You can use skimmed milk or if available Raw milk is best. You can even use spoilt milk, butter milk or stuff like that. Use it with lower than 20 percent dilution in water that is 1:5 dilution. So you can add about 100 ml or 200 ml milk to our universal solvent. Milk is not only a source of calcium, but also an antifungal for treatment of powdery mildew and blossom end rot disease on tomato and other vegetable plants. It also kills many plant viruses like tobacco mosaic virus. In place if milk you can add 1 liter of a special water. Yes that’s special calcium rich water for plants. It s nothing but the left over water after you hard boil few eggs. The egg shells release a lot of calcium into this water during boiling.
3. Epsom Salt that’s magnesium sulfate which is a greatest source of magnesium and sulfur. This is easily available at a gardening store or at your local pharmacist and even online. So the dosage is max 5 gms or little lesser than a teaspoon per 1 liter of water.
4. Then the Most important ingredient for adding the major NPK elements into the foliar spray is COMPOST TEA. So, how do you make compost tea? Its really simple. Just Add a handful of decomposed manure or compost like cowdung powder or vermicompost per liter of water. You can make your own quantity of 2 liters or 5 liters depending on your garden size. Allow this to brew for atleast 1 week. Make sure you stir this atleast once every 24 hours to oxygenate this mix till 1 week. Then strain out the liquid using a cloth and use this liquid. I shall make a detailed video some other time on how to use some simple gadgets like an aquarium air pump to quickly make your compost tea.
Well, For now, Once the compost tea is ready, you should dilute this like 1:5 in water and then add about 1 liter to the above solution. Normally if you are using only the compost tea as a foliar spray, you need to use 1:10 dilution. But here we are making a 2.1 liter solution in total. I Hope you got my point!
That’s it, mix it thoroughly and load the spray bottle or use your electric sprayer or whatever and foliar feed your plants. Spray very early in the morning or late in the evening because leaf stomatas are well opened at this period so that absorption happens at its best.