curled new growth - is this a calcium deficiency?

austin87

austin87

I think this is calcium deficiency. I think this would be solved by bone meal (which I have) or Cal Mag (which I do not).
 

 

 

 
This is mostly on my yellow BBG7 and jalapeño. Other plants look good.
 
Thanks!

The plants are in 5 gal fabric pots. If the plan is to use bone meal I am thinking I would apply about 2 tablespoons to the top of the soil and water in. If I need to go get Cal Mag I do not know how to apply that.
 
I am much more inclined to think it's the very early sign of fert burn. Typical mite damage to new leaves makes them grow more thin and elongated, but those are not like that. Plus, particularly in the first and third pics, you'll notice some of the tell-tale signs in the larger leaves, which is a bit of warping. What have you been feeding them, how much and how often? And yes, some herbicides can cause a similar look, but if neither you nor a close neighbor have used any, I'd lean towards early fert burn. 
 
wiggle waggled midrib vein is typical of mites, but not exclusive to them.

i would bet its mites and only mites personally, but its impossible to say.

i dont see how you could go from healthy to calcium deficient in like 1 or 2 nodes unless you had hella rain or something like a transplant into deficient soil.

the first one showes some heat stress to fwiw. that rolling of the leaf margin and slight blistering or puckering of the midrib tissue? thats typical of heat in my experiance. chins frutenses do it, so do frutenses to a lesser extnet. annums do a droppy claw upwards thing and then stunt down to 0 groth...

get a jewlers scope thing imo.
 
man its not fert burn. why does fert burn always get thrown around. its the new over watering i swear lol.

no offense intended here, but its pretty obvisious when you burn a plant with fertilizers. you get necrotic tissue, usually on the very newest growth at the tips, then it burns back along the margins of the leaf. then tie plants distort around the tip as the midrib swells.

if you are spraying something incorrectly, yea you could see burning in an erratic pattern, but thats something else entirely.

when you have low soil moisture and high soil salinity you can get wilting of the newest growth without obivious tip burning, but you will get stunting and motteling and wilting generalized over all of the new growth. from what i can tell his new growth is healthy and green, its just been damaged by something.
 
geeme said:
I am much more inclined to think it's the very early sign of fert burn. Typical mite damage to new leaves makes them grow more thin and elongated, but those are not like that. Plus, particularly in the first and third pics, you'll notice some of the tell-tale signs in the larger leaves, which is a bit of warping. What have you been feeding them, how much and how often? And yes, some herbicides can cause a similar look, but if neither you nor a close neighbor have used any, I'd lean towards early fert burn. 
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I don't think it's mites. The leaves have no webs and have a sheen to them but I can pick up a jewler's scope.
 
I hit them with too much fert when they were in solo cups. Most of the others also had fert burn but they've all responded really well since moving outside with more growth that is nice and healthy. They were all planted in approx 5 parts ProMix + 1 part compost + 1 part perlite. Added a couple tablespoons each of bone meal and Osmocote 14/14/14 into the top layer of soil.
 
 
 
queequeg152 said:
wiggle waggled midrib vein is typical of mites, but not exclusive to them.

i would bet its mites and only mites personally, but its impossible to say.

i dont see how you could go from healthy to calcium deficient in like 1 or 2 nodes unless you had hella rain or something like a transplant into deficient soil.

the first one showes some heat stress to fwiw. that rolling of the leaf margin and slight blistering or puckering of the midrib tissue? thats typical of heat in my experiance. chins frutenses do it, so do frutenses to a lesser extnet. annums do a droppy claw upwards thing and then stunt down to 0 groth...

get a jewlers scope thing imo.
Click to expand...
 
They were planted in approx 5 parts ProMix + 1 part compost + 1 part perlite. Added the bone meal and Oscmocote as described above. The mix drains really well and it's been in the 90s here so I've been watering pretty heavily when they need it which is about every other day. Maybe I've washed everything through.
 
Appreciate the feedback. Again I'll check more closely for mites.
 
austin87 said:
I don't think it's mites. The leaves have no webs and have a sheen to them but I can pick up a jewler's scope.
 
I hit them with too much fert when they were in solo cups. Most of the others also had fert burn but they've all responded really well since moving outside with more growth that is nice and healthy. They were all planted in approx 5 parts ProMix + 1 part compost + 1 part perlite. Added a couple tablespoons each of bone meal and Osmocote 14/14/14 into the top layer of soil.
 
 
 
 
They were planted in approx 5 parts ProMix + 1 part compost + 1 part perlite. Added the bone meal and Oscmocote as described above. The mix drains really well and it's been in the 90s here so I've been watering pretty heavily when they need it which is about every other day. Maybe I've washed everything through.
 
Appreciate the feedback. Again I'll check more closely for mites.
Click to expand...
not all mites produce obivious webs man, even spider mites... only when the infestation is real bad do you see the webs.

ive been good about stopping mite infestations early the past 2 years... ive not seen webs prior to confirmation via my usb microscope once in those two years, have not had spiter mites though.

mites dont have to be super numerous to damage a tiny leaf enough to cause it to distort appreciably as it grows out.
 
queequeg152 said:
not all mites produce obivious webs man, even spider mites... only when the infestation is real bad do you see the webs.

ive been good about stopping mite infestations early the past 2 years... ive not seen webs prior to confirmation via my usb microscope once in those two years, have not had spiter mites though.

mites dont have to be super numerous to damage a tiny leaf enough to cause it to distort appreciably as it grows out.
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Agreed
 
queequeg152 said:
man its not fert burn. why does fert burn always get thrown around. its the new over watering i swear lol.

no offense intended here, but its pretty obvisious when you burn a plant with fertilizers. you get necrotic tissue, usually on the very newest growth at the tips, then it burns back along the margins of the leaf. then tie plants distort around the tip as the midrib swells.

if you are spraying something incorrectly, yea you could see burning in an erratic pattern, but thats something else entirely.

when you have low soil moisture and high soil salinity you can get wilting of the newest growth without obivious tip burning, but you will get stunting and motteling and wilting generalized over all of the new growth. from what i can tell his new growth is healthy and green, its just been damaged by something.
Click to expand...
 
when you asked if it rained a lot I thought about how much water I've been giving them. As soon as one or two plants start to show signs of wilting I generally water everything. And when I do I generally run quite a bit of water through.
 
I know it will depend on the mix, temps, drainage, etc., but about how many gallons of water should it take to thoroughly and evenly wet the mix through? Like I said my mix drains really well so I know I'm not drowning the roots, but if 1-2 should do it then I'm watering waay too heavily.
 
austin87 said:
when you asked if it rained a lot I thought about how much water I've been giving them. As soon as one or two plants start to show signs of wilting I generally water everything. And when I do I generally run quite a bit of water through.
 
I know it will depend on the mix, temps, drainage, etc., but about how many gallons of water should it take to thoroughly and evenly wet the mix through? Like I said my mix drains really well so I know I'm not drowning the roots, but if 1-2 should do it then I'm watering waay too heavily.
Click to expand...
if your mix is mostly promix, you dont have to worry about it wetting evenly. just worry about excessive runoff.

with a soilless medium you generally want about 10% by volume runoff and not more. yours however is organic for the most part? you probably dont need ANY runoff on a regular basis. the ocassional rainstorm should do it for you.
 
queequeg152 said:
if your mix is mostly promix, you dont have to worry about it wetting evenly. just worry about excessive runoff.with a soilless medium you generally want about 10% by volume runoff and not more. yours however is organic for the most part? you probably dont need ANY runoff on a regular basis. the ocassional rainstorm should do it for you.
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I'm in California we don't get summer rain :( all ours comes in the winter.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I've been running off far more than 10%. I'll pump the breaks in that.
 
if you have a TDS or conductivity meter you can just collect runoff and test it. i think you will see that it does not moove much unless you are watering in water soluble ferts like hydro.

it will at least give you an idea of whats going on.
 
 
 
I just sprayed with some epsom salt
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If it is a calcium deficiency then I wonder if this might worsen it? For some reason I remember too much magnesium causing calcium deficiency indirectly. I'm completely unsure about that though!
 
queequeg152 said:
man its not fert burn. why does fert burn always get thrown around. its the new over watering i swear lol.

no offense intended here, but its pretty obvisious when you burn a plant with fertilizers. you get necrotic tissue, usually on the very newest growth at the tips, then it burns back along the margins of the leaf. then tie plants distort around the tip as the midrib swells.
Click to expand...
 
 
What you are describing is more advanced fert burn. The very beginning is warped leaves that kind of look like they're bubbling. The point is that if you stop over-fertilizing at this very early stage, it will never get to the stage you describe. Consider BER - in the very early stages of that, the pod walls appear to be somewhat watery and soft, but there are no brown or black areas. It is not until BER continues that the brown and black appear. Yet if you look up BER pictures, the vast majority of what appears are in the very late stages with the brown and black areas. Fert burn is similar, in that the early stage doesn't appear the same as the late stage. Granted, the degree to which fert burn is occurring impacts what is seen, as well. People who are only mildly over-fertilizing at first tend to get more of the warped leaves on their plants, but if you strongly over-fertilize the plants will more quickly get to the stage you describe.
 
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