Yellowing of top leaves, and a couple of "first" leaves.

[Helldozer]

Howdy all,

I'm having a little of issues, I think. The top leaves on a lot of my pepper plants are yellowing. A few of the first 'seedling' leaves fell off of a couple too.

I recently transplanted them, about a week and a half ago. My soil is a potting mix from Navlet's and a small portion of steer manure. I've also been fertilizing them every watering, per suggestions on the forum. The fertilizer mix I'm using is the MG Tomato food. Which I believe is a 14-14-14 mix. I've been adding about a half dose (1 1/2 scoops of the small end of measurer) to a 2 liter bottle of water and watering with that. I don't believe I am over-watering these either. I'm waiting till the leaves begin to droop and the soil is really dry up to 4" to 5" down.

I'm worried I might start losing them because of the few leaves that have fallen off. The last time that happened to me, I lost an entire plant. I put that on over-watering though.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Here are some photos.

I was thinking of changing the fertilizer to a veggie food mix I got from Navlet's. It's a 5-10-10 mix with Calcium in it. The MG Tomato food does not look like it has Calcium.

 

[muskymojo]

It still looks like over watering to me. When you water, do you thoroughly wet the whole cup? Even if you wait until the cups are dry before watering, they can take a long time to get there. If I thoroughly water, my cups will still be quite heavy 5 days later in a 80 F room with a fan and low humidity. That's long enough to get some yellowing in wet soil. I bottom water for no longer than 5 minutes, and the surface of the potting mix always stays dry. I don't think calcium makes a difference as far as yellowing goes.

 

[Helldozer]

It still looks like over watering to me. When you water, do you thoroughly wet the whole cup? Even if you wait until the cups are dry before watering, they can take a long time to get there. If I thoroughly water, my cups will still be quite heavy 5 days later in a 80 F room with a fan and low humidity. That's long enough to get some yellowing in wet soil. I bottom water for no longer than 5 minutes, and the surface of the potting mix always stays dry. I don't think calcium makes a difference as far as yellowing goes.

I do wet the entire cup. I soak from the bottom, but also from the top. I always worried about them being too dry on the top. I'm still a noob.

I thought over-watering normally started yellowing the leaves from the bottom up? That would suck if I over-watered though. My experience so far is that I lose the entire plant if over-watered. I would hate to lose ALL of them. Blarrrgh!

I'm guessing there is no way to recover from this, unless they dry out soon. Like I said, I've lost all plants that showed any signs of yellowing on the lower leaves.

 

[Maxsack331]

yellowing from the bottom up, from what I have read is mainly a lack of Nitrogen, top down is more from over watering.. but since you say you let them dry out a lot, and in party cups, it shouldn't be that bad.. I would just water from the top or bottom for a little while, I personally like top watering for now just because the soil that I use in the party cups do not soak up the water that much, but it drains really well.. when they get moved into larger containers I'm using heavier soil...

but overall I would say cut back on the fertilizing to... I dono, about a 1/3 of the recommended dose, and only every other time.. my plants in party cups just get fertilized a little bit towards the end with only like 2 drops of the 10-10-10 fert each, about.. I dono... every 3rd week or something... but I had it in MG potting soil with a lot of perlite added, and didn't fertilize for the first month at all.. but I'm just really feeling my way through this, this year, since I usually don't start inside early... but that is what other people generally suggest on here I think when I see threads like this.. give it a shot.. can't hurt really? I have been noticing that pepper plants really don't need much lol.. which is almost a bad thing since most people like to give them too much "love" and it just hurts them.. which is why I liked the basil, where I can just load it with ferts and watch it sprout "nuclear leaves" as I called them last summer lol they were huge

 

[Helldozer]

If the plants were too far gone from over-watering, would the leaves be droopy? Do my plants look like they will be okay?

As you can tell, I'm pretty worried about losing all my hard work.

 

[Sethsquatch]

I would say eliminate the ferts for a few waterings. Also, the next couple times you water, just top water so it can help rinse out the soil if there are too many nutes in there.

When I was at the hydro store and told the owner I was going to be using solo cups, he said to make sure you cut the hole in four places. He also said make sure the cut goes up the side a bit as well as on the bottom for drainage.

I started to have some yellow droopy leaf and just straight watered without fertilizer through the top and the plant bounced back in a couple days. Good luck.

 

[Maxsack331]

yeah, I personally just took a small soldering iron and put 8 small holes around the outer edge, in pairs of 2, and then 2 in the middle

and as far as the yellowing and droopiness, I think it is from both over watering a little... maybe but I think more so because of the fertilizer.. when I repotted my plants and had a few other ones, I had the fertilizer in there and i think I overdid it for a few of them.. they were all equally fertilized and it is slow release so it shouldn't be too bad but I think I remember using a little extra liquid one time.. and some of them are a little yellowish and some have very pale yellow spots on the leaves (2 of my Aji Lemons ), and one of my Bulgarian Carrots are slightly yellow and drooping from a mixture of over watering, (I had forgotten that I had a heavier mix in that pot.. even though it was part of the 14 plants that I started really early and most of them had really lite soil mixes, but I had to remix some soil for the last 2, and it turned up being a little heavier.. so like I said, a mixture between over watering and nutes.. but they should be fine... mine has a bunch of peppers growing on it and it kind is frozen right now (the peppers just stopped growing) so I'm just waiting for them to fix itself

sorry for rambling, I'm tired, had a bunch of tests this week lol, and my dog keeps waking me up in the middle of the night.. she's super old

 

[muskymojo]

If the plants were too far gone from over-watering, would the leaves be droopy? Do my plants look like they will be okay?

As you can tell, I'm pretty worried about losing all my hard work.

I think they will be fine. They look good other than the yellowing. I've had plants look just like that many times, and never lost them. Just a few weeks ago I was testing out some potting mixes before potting up all my plants, and had several look worse than yours do now. After drying out, and a light feeding, they are all green again. Needless to say, I didn't use that mix for the rest of them.

 

[stc3248]

yellowing from the bottom up, from what I have read is mainly a lack of Nitrogen, top down is more from over watering.. but since you say you let them dry out a lot, and in party cups, it shouldn't be that bad.. I would just water from the top or bottom for a little while, I personally like top watering for now just because the soil that I use in the party cups do not soak up the water that much, but it drains really well.. when they get moved into larger containers I'm using heavier soil...

but overall I would say cut back on the fertilizing to... I dono, about a 1/3 of the recommended dose, and only every other time.. my plants in party cups just get fertilized a little bit towards the end with only like 2 drops of the 10-10-10 fert each, about.. I dono... every 3rd week or something... but I had it in MG potting soil with a lot of perlite added, and didn't fertilize for the first month at all.. but I'm just really feeling my way through this, this year, since I usually don't start inside early... but that is what other people generally suggest on here I think when I see threads like this.. give it a shot.. can't hurt really? I have been noticing that pepper plants really don't need much lol.. which is almost a bad thing since most people like to give them too much "love" and it just hurts them.. which is why I liked the basil, where I can just load it with ferts and watch it sprout "nuclear leaves" as I called them last summer lol they were huge

+1 on the nutes and agree with everyone on the watering. You need to check out your soil and find out what nutes were already in it, factor in that you added manure, and you are feeding 1/2 strength indoors which is way more than they need. I'm betting that with some research you will find that your soil is loaded with guanno, castings or chemical ferts of some sort. According to what your soil has in it...you may not even need to feed at all for a couple months. I've made the same mistake...I wouldn't feed them for a while and cut way back on your watering and see what happens. Too few nutes will take a LONG time to kill a plant. Too much can kill them in a couple hours.

They don't look terrible right now...they'll recover.
Good Luck!
Shane

 

[Dulac]

It could be over fert or overwatering.

 

[stc3248]

Or both!!!

 

[Dulac]

If the plants were too far gone from over-watering, would the leaves be droopy? Do my plants look like they will be okay?

As you can tell, I'm pretty worried about losing all my hard work.

No worries. I've had plants get like this and come back. Just let em dry out a bit and don't fert for awhile (just in case that is the problem). I've over fertilized some of my pants to the point where on one plant the leaves liquefied. They are recovering, but I stopped fertilizing them. Fortunately that only happened to a plant I don't care about. I was pushing it a bit to see how much fert I can give them. They same happened to my overwatered plants. The leaves are a healthy dark green now . I just backed off on the watering. I let my soil dry out a lot before watering. I found that a fan and indoor sunlight help dry out the soil if there is too much water in the pot.

Edit: One sign of my plants getting overwatered were the leaves dropping. I just noticed you lost a leaf in your cup. The leaves will grow back slowly.

Or both!!!

Yeah, that's true. Best to back off on both to be safe. Usually you get brown tips on the leaves and spotty light green discoloration when overfertlizing. In worse cases you can get white leaves. Even worse than that you can get brown spots (that's when it's really bad). And alas your leaves get liquefied in the worst case.


Edit again: Hmm, I think it might be both from the looks of one of your leaves. Pics 3 and 4 have a dark discoloration which looks like minor fert burn to me. No worries though, I've had this happen to me. I just backed off on the ferts and water and they were fine. I also think the dark stems are an indicator of overwatering. However, maybe the symptoms are very similar.

Edit: here is one of my plants recovering from fert burn. It was worse before. The light green is getting greener and smaller. A lot of the light green spots have disappeared. Looks a bit worse from my cell phone camera though, lol.This one got it much worse than the other ones except for the one with the leaves that liquified, lol. I thought this might give you hope for you plants.

I'm worried I might start losing them because of the few leaves that have fallen off.

Don't worry too much yet! My cayenne (it's fruiting now) gradually lost about 6 leaves until I figured out it was being overwatered. It grew new leaves at the nodes where they fell off.

 

[Maxsack331]

hmm, yeah it seems that I have some plants that are a little more susceptible to fert burn, I just assumed since there was no burning of the tips of the leaves that I was good to go.. or that it was over watering.. .it is definitely both, but I have the watering under control for the most part.. the fan being on most of the time is helping a lot... and since I have plenty of ferts in there already, and they are slow release I think I must have just given them some MG liquid ferts at some point or something stupid like that

btw, they don't get like that when it's too acidic do they?.. I'm pretty sure my soil is only pH of 5.9-6.3 or so.. at least last time I checked.. I'll have to check again tomorrow.. but just was thinking about that too.. and I can't find what happens when it's a little too acidic.. although 5-6.5 is suppose to be good for peppers... so I am pretty sure I'm fine... man I need to go to bed, been thinking about peppers too long today lol

 

[stc3248]

Doesn't necessarily have to be fert burn either...overfeeding or an imbalance in nutrients can cause nute lockout which can present as yellowing...don't know if that's the case here, but I do know based on your original feeding schedule and the fact that you had already added manure to your potting mix(which probably contained nutes) that they were getting way more than needed, and will be fine for several weeks if not a month or two without any nutes at all.

Manure is tricky in seedlings anyway. Unless it has been composted properly it can be either too hot for them, or it can take a while to start breaking down and benefiting the plants...I add manure to my compost and let it cook for a couple months then use it at plant out (not just for nutes but also to keep the soil loose to support good root growth) or to amend a potting mix.
+1 on checking your PH...if it is nute lockout high PH might be a contributing factor.

Plants are survivors and peppers in particular, and although they might not be as lush or produce as heavily they would more than likely survive just fine without any help from us at all. I grew up with wild tepins and pequins in South Texas that would come back year after year in sandy soil without any added water or nutes in a climate that had very little rain and temps over 100 degrees from June through the beginning of October.

Sorry for the book, but I am bored and this is one of the few recent topics that interests me...let me check new content and see if I can find a new target...
Shane

 

[Maxsack331]

lol, I do the same thing.

but yeah I completely forgot that fert burn is not the same as over fertilizing.. so over feeding can cause them to not absorb the nutrients? lol just sounds weird but kind of makes sense overall..