I have a deficiency of what?

Several of my brugs seedlings and one plant from a cutting have leaves like this. All are in the ground. I have been playing a guessing game for the past couple of weeks, and my guesses and subsequent remedies are not producing results. The only thing I haven't tried prior to today was magnesium sulfate, which I applied today. I have very alkaline soil. I feed a good complete fertilizer once per week, and have been giving them Chelated Iron about once a month. In between, they get a treat of Liquid Seaweed or Molasses... Thanks in advance to any and all ideas :) Gretchen

I have some of this going on too and in my case, I think it has been all the temperature changes we have had. 40 + degrees is a big change and it started happening here right after we went into the 40's and 50's at night. We will be cool for several days again now. The first thing I checked for was mites, but couldn't find any.

Thanks Shirley! I'm so sorry for all you've been through in the past two days!!!

Its definitely not mites. I really think its a nutrient deficiency of some kind due to my alkaline soil and now no rain and lots of wind, so I'm watering more with my hard water... Hard to tell. Thank you for responding. I'm sure you have better things to do right now!

Gretchen

Gretchen, my 2 big "old faithful" brugs are doing the same thing. The leaves are turning yellow and falling off, or they are partially green and yellow. They've never done that before. I also noticed my Diana althea is doing the same thing.

Gretchen, mine are doing the same thing....I can't figure it out either. Maybe it's the heat?

Time? Money? Patience?

Oh, you meant the brug ;-) Well, that could just be heat stress and/or lack of water. I have seen that happen before when the plants are not happy because of the weather. Check your soil pH because if it's really high that might be preventing the plants from absorbing minerals even if you feed them enough.

Thanks all! I think its a combination of heat, wind, watering constantly with hard water, and yes Tom, high ph. I think perhaps that the dose of epsom salts I gave them today may help open them up to absorb some of the other nutrients that I've been feeding lately. I hope so! Its so funny that my plants started from cuttings are not suffering, and a few seedlings are doing fine. Guess some are just more susceptable than others to nutrient deficiencies.

Sylvia and Pam -- I'll let you know how the epsom salts works! We Texans gotta stick together LOL!

LOL....I totally agree.

Gretchen, if you can find aluminum sulfate, it will lower the pH. Follow package directions. Some of mine are doing like yours and when I talked to my favorite nurseryman down here, he said it's inconsistent watering(too dry, then too much which I'm guilty of, lol) plus the high pH and we also have salts in our irrigation water plus selenium. The high pH makes it impossible for the plants to use the nutrients and the heat causes them to need more nitrogen(plus organic mulch starts to break down in the heat and use up the nitrogen) and they get yellow. What he said made sense, so I bought acid loving plant food, some aluminum sulfate and some gypsum(which is effective in absorbing salts from the soil). I'll let you guys know if it helps.

Thanks, Cala! Those were pretty much the conclusions I came to... both my soil and water have a high ph so I figured that even though I was feeding them like clockwork, they were not absorbing the nutrients due to those factors. I read somewhere that magnesium and sulphur would "unlock" this, so that's what I've tried. I started to buy a fertilizer for acid loving plants yesterday, but noticed that none of them added those ingredients, just mega amounts of N, so I thought I'd try this first.

Please post your results when you notice anything different -- I'll do the same. Thanks again :) Gretchen

Hmmmmmmm my L'Amour is doing the same thing except she is in a pot and gets watered every other day always

Donna: Do you have hard water? If so, the ph of your soil may be higher and inhibiting the plant's ability to take in nutrients. Just a thought...

If you are measuring the pH with a meter, what is the desired range?

The brugs I planted directly in the ground were in a bed of aged horse manure and oak leaves, tilled into the soil prior to planting. I checked the pH and found levels between 6 and 6.5. Added a bit of lime (even though our backyard is full of limestone and our water is "hard") and brought the pH up to 7, then got better growth and some buds.

7 is the neutral point. That's what every gardener strives for, because at that neutral point, plants can readily absorb nutrients.

Edited to add -- congratulations Eileen on your perfect ph! Gretchen :)

This message was edited Aug 20, 2004 6:39 PM

Thanks for the info. I just noticed that the ones that were doing better had a pH of 7, and the poorer ones were in more acid soil.