Nutrient Problem? Disease?(several species)

I'm hoping one of the experts will come along and help. I'm posting several photos of different plants, not all have the same problem but it may be related. I'm taking soil in today for another test. Our soil pH is slightly over 7, water has calcium carbonate hardness in excess of 300ppm, not chlorinated. I garden organically in transition to become certified. I use Espoma Bio-Tone at the recommended rate after transplanting or after seedlings have true leaves. I also add greensand at the recommended rate. I have never had this many problems all at once. In addition to the chlorosis, the caterpillars (various but mostly diamond back moth, cabbage loopers and leaf rollers) are driving me nuts. We've had wind and rain making it hard to spray but I think I have the caterpillars under control. Weather is hotter than normal, highs in the 90's, cool front expected to hit Thursday night.
Problem Overview:
Various species stunted growth, yellow leaves some with pink tinge in a row of green plants. When plants are dug up, the roots are healthy. Here is a photo of normal broccoli (yes, it has worm holes) and chlorotic broccoli side by side.

Chlorotic turnip. I had terrible germination, I know it's too hot for turnips.

Normal Pac Choi

Right next to these beautiful plants is this one, same age, same soil, same everything. Caterpillars like them too.

Cauliflower, normal and chlorotic growing side by side.

Even the beans have it. The germination on these beans was terrible. I've since replanted the row with cucumbers which are nice and green. I had trouble with one seed company's seeds germinating, so I blame the germination problems on that. I left the bean so I could photograph it.

Radishes, watermelon radish, heirloom variety which takes longer to grow than other varieties. The cherry belles only have a few chlorotic plants.

Even the sweet potatoes have it. Keep in mind, this is not whole rows of plants, but here and there, hit and miss. Right next to these are beautiful green sp vines.

Another chlorotic sweet potato, almost white.

Green Cabbage, although it has worm holes, at least the whole row is green. This isn't a small garden, the rows are 35 feet long, the whole garden area is 120 x 120. The problems are in the older section, copious amounts of good compost have been added. Crop rotation is practiced.

In the row next to the cabbage is brussels sprouts. The raised beds are 4ft wide with 2 rows of plants in most, some like cukes and squash only have one row, others with carrots and radishes have 3 or 4 rows.

Two more problems, these could be related to each other. I bought pepper plants from a local nursery because mine weren't ready. I had this same exact problem with pepper plants from the same nursery last year (maybe I should remember that next time!). The plants looked healthy when I bought them, they've been in the ground less than a month. I picked a leaf, flicked it above white paper and didn't see anything move. I'm thinking thrips, sprayed with conserve which is OMRI approved and is listed for thrips control.

Pepper again, the only peppers which don't have this problem are the ones I grew from seed. They are fine.

Potato, this may be related to the above pepper problem, or could be a nutrient deficiency. I've searched my books, searched the internet, can't find any mention of bronzed leaves that look like this on a potato.
Certified seed potatoes, red gold I think was the name (I planted several kinds, the wind blew away my tag).
Not every plant has this, but enough to make me worry if I should rip them out and plant something else there. I flicked the leaves over white paper, nothing.

Germination was terrible. Texas A&M said August 15th for potatoes in the RGV. Maybe in a normal year, but this year has been hotter than normal. Same row.
Russian Banana and Red Norlands do not have this problem.

Chlorotic potato, same row, same variety.

I gave them extra nitrogen, 2 times. I also gave them iron. Nothing has worked so far.
We're getting a cool spell tonight that should last a few days. Maybe that will help.
I ripped up some of the most yellow plants and replaced them. They had beautiful roots.

Susie, what did you turn into the soil? I remember you said you like to turn in compost, cut grass, hay for mulch etc.

Since the yellowed plants are appearing sporadically here and there I wonder if you have pockets of non-decomposed plant matter; it could be heating up and/or binding up the nitrogen to those yellowed plants.

Another thought is some sort of drift from a neighboring farm/orchard or something. OR perhaps there was a weed killer in the hay/mulch you brought in (which seems to happen more and more these days).

I don't think you have an iron deficiency at all. Even though adding greensand (especially Texas greensand) you'd be adding iron and potassium it wouldn't be available immediately but rather over a period of time. Also keep in mind that greensand assays out to about 8.5 pH so if you already have an alkaline soil, or even neutral) you may be raising the pH too much, which would inhibit nutrition uptake. There again, if you applied it last year or this past Spring and it wasn't completely turned under you may have pockets of it as well.

Sure hope you get to the bottom of this. I hate to see you lose those goodies you are growing!

Shoe

Shoe, thanks so much. I did turn in compost. Bud took the walk behind tiller and tilled up the rows back in July, then I shoveled out the isles again, but not all beds were done that way. Some I turned with the "tater fork" to loosen them up a bit. I brought in 4 year old compost from the horse ranch. The horse ranch is completely organic, he uses citric acid and vinegar for weed killer, but mostly he just tills under problem areas. We don't use herbicides, but they were doing aerial spraying of the huge farm next door. (I had thought of the herbicide issue too).

I added greensand last spring. I had no idea it was alkaline, thanks for that information. I also added more this fall along with alfalfa pellets, molasses and the espoma (which has green sand in it). I thought the plants might need manganese so I bought a different brand of natural fertilizer and added that. It also had a bit more nitrogen in it (it smells like chicken poop). I add grass clippings to the isles but always add nitrogen to them so they don't steal it from the plants. I haven't had much extra mulch to put on the tops of the beds, but I did put a little bit.

Do you think another dose of fish emulsion would hurt? I am still waiting on the soil test from the FSA. I have about 50 each of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and nappa cabbage to plant. They're going in the new section which was tilled back in June then re-tilled in August.

BTW, I had pac choi, radishes, cukes, yellow squash, carrots, green onions, arugula, swiss chard and leaf lettuce from the garden last night!

"BTW, I had pac choi, radishes, cukes, yellow squash, carrots, green onions, arugula, swiss chard and leaf lettuce from the garden last night!"

Yummmy! There's some good eats there! You go, girl!! (Whoops, sorry, guess I was getting too excited, eh?) *grin

Sounds to me like you're right on the ball with your garden. I hope the FSA tests will show something definite as to what the heck is going on with those sickly plants though.

As for using more fish emulsion, I doubt it could be over-used (with the exception of someone dumping the concentrate directly on a plant). I'd definitely feel free to use it again, preferably as a foliar spray, bypassing those root systems. I'd even add some kelp meal to it if you have some, especially if your getting cooler temperatures now or in the near future. (I have no idea what ya'lls weather is like down there this time of year but figure cool weather must be coming soon or you wouldn't have so much Brassica planted.)

Rest easy...you still have a mighty successful garden (and life!) going on down there!

Super best to you and Bud!
Shoe

Calalily -

I know iron can lock up phosphorus and other things but if an iron deficiency is suspected, chelated iron sprayed on the foliage gives green leaves in a day or two. Thanks to Shoe, I think I know what is going on with the yellow leaves.

I read Shoe's first reply to Bud. He said herbicide poisoning was his first thought was also. Then he started pondering. We bought the lot in June 2008, it joins our property, the people who owned it did everything "green." I would not have suspected atrazine ever being used on their grass, especially since it was just a lot with wild grass and mesquite trees. We called them, they'd contracted with a lawn service to mow and asked them to fertilize and get rid of the burr clover (we leave it, it only grows in cool weather and is great for the soil). The lawn service used a "weed and feed" type fertilizer. Bud mowed the grass and bagged the clippings which I used in the isles of the raised beds. After composting in the isles, the clippings (amended with alfalfa, molasses and other stuff) made wonderful compost which I shoveled up on top of the beds. That's why only some of the beds have problems. I just never got around to shoveling all of the compost up on the beds. I should have known that's where the problem was coming from; I started some cuttings from my tomato plants, they rooted fast but then slowly turned yellow and died.

Today I planted broccoli, cabbage, nappa cabbage, pac choi, bok choi and potatoes in a new section of the garden. We will see how these do. I'll wait till the soil test comes back before adding much. I did water the plants in with weak fish emulsion.

The peppers and potatoes have new growth that looks good. I sprayed those with Conserve. I'm thinking thrips caused the bronzing of those leaves.

Excellent! I listen when shoe speaks.

I have a qt. of liquid Atrazine, unopened, that I bought years ago before I started my education on going green. It will be safe in my garage as long as I live but I wonder who to leave it to for safe keeping.

It seems like I read an article this summer about it being very controversial and possibly being considered for banning. I can't remember what or where though.

I wouldn't know what to do with a qt of Atrazine either! I'll have to do some research to see how bad it is. I wonder how long it takes to get out of the ground? I wonder if gypsum would help bind it up? I don' tknow much abut weed killers.

I sure hope we can find out for sure what the problem is...

I kind of hope it is an atrazine problem, then again hope it isn't! Who would want that on your land, eh? Or in your ground water? Ugh. I don't know a whole lot about it either, Susie, but guess that means it's a good idea to research it and find out more about it. I'll see what I can find and you do the same, please.

Keep us posted on what the soil tests shows when you get it back!

Shoe (off to get some free firewood, already cut and split! I'm in heaven!) *grin

Shoe, I went to a nursery yesterday and he thought the gypsum pellets would work to absorb the atrazine.

Mornin...

Good to hear you are trying to get rid of the atrazine. I was leaning more towards phytoremediation rather than using something that would just lock up the atrazine.

From the little reading I did this morning it looks like there has been lots of experiments/research (USA, Sweden, India) looking for ways to pull atrazine out of the soil or "neuter" it (my preferred word for "neutralizing" it! :>)

To make it fairly short, atrazine prefers to bond to good soil, high in organics and microbes (which is good, not bad) and the microbes (mycorriza, Arthrobacter spp, etc) work to break it down. That is from a phyto-microbial remediation perspective.

From strictly phytoremediation it appears that Zea mays, Poplar (trees/cuttings), and Vertiver have shown good work at absorbing the atrazine, with corn (Zea m.) (even Sorghum) pulling it up only as far as into it's roots and no further. (Good if you want to eat the corn, eh!?) The research using Poplar used rooted cuttings in a hydroponic test and pulled the atrazine in as little as 63 days; since Poplar roots so fast I can see myself sticking cuttings in my rows of the garden, pulling them up in a few months (if I had atrazine, that is)!

Anyway, all in all, I think the way you and Bud use good compost, soil amendments, organic mulches (WITHOUT Atrazine), combined with feeding the microbial life in your soil (I'd recommend compost leach/tea, molasses, sugar, etc) I feel confident you'll be rid of that stuff in no time flat.

Whew! My Sunday real coffee (Eight o'Clock Columbian), combined with my itchy feet, tell me it is time to get up and moving a bit. (Feet like to do that, ya know, they're not made for sittin' much, so time to go stretch my toes a while!)

Holler back! And I still have some of those research webpages still open if you'd like some heavy reading.

Super best to you both!
Shoe

Thanks Shoe, I haven't had a lot of time to do research (cool front here, good days to plant). I have a bag of sweet corn seed, I can try the corn. We do feed the soil molasses, compost tea and alfalfa so I will continue to do that.

Did I tell you about the time we used salt cedar posts to hold up the tomato cages? Salt cedar is a trash tree, not a real cedar. We cut some nice straight poles, cut them into posts, drove them in the ground and the darned things rooted! Bud had to take the bobcat bucket with a chain and pull them out!

Calalily - your experience with the salt cedar made me giggle - although I'm sure Bud wasn't in the mood to do so when he was pulling it out!

Made me think - we decided to cut and use the bamboo (for stakes) that's growing in one corner of our back yard - I was very concerned that it would put down roots, but thankfully, it didn't. Believe me, one does not need bamboo growing where one does not want it!

Hehehe, too funny about the salt cedar! Been there, almost! We had to put in sticks in some of our potted rose bushes we had for sell one year, over 100 of them, to help support them during transport. DW found a tree limb I'd cut down and cut 2' and 3' support stakes from the branches. Later in the year I noticed they were leafing out...it was Tulip Poplar and had rooted in the pots of rose bushes. Live and learn, eh?

Kinda nice to know your salt cedar posts would easily become a living fence though, if you ever needed one.

Honeybee, I hear ya on the bamboo, some of those varieties are a onetime planting job, once you have it you have forever!

Shoe

I've been doing research all night on potatoes and peppers after visiting the extension office and speaking to a total idiot. Long story, I posted about it in market gardeners.

I finally found something at the University of Nebraska website that describes my potato problem to a T:

DEFICIENCY and EXCESS SYMPTOMS (Tables 3 and 4):
Deficit of K is most likely in leaching soil types especially sandy soils. Early symptoms of K deficiency are a dark greening or bluish greening of foliage. Leaves appear glossy. Tiny (1/25th inch), light green spots develop between the veins of larger leaves. In the upper canopy, leaf margins curl down and leaflets are small, cupped and crowded. They become crinkled and bronzed on their upper surface, and the lower surface has brown speckles, superficially similar to early blight. Older leaves turn bronze then brown (necrotic) and die early. The key symptom is the overall bronzing of the canopy. A severe deficiency results in short plants with shortened internodes, poor root growth and shortened stolons. The stem end of tubers harvested from K deficient plants have small (about 1/10th inch) sunken lesions that, upon drying, hollow out, surrounded by corky tissue. Tubers are predisposed to black spot bruising and are disease-susceptible. Sugar levels are high and dry matter low.

edited because I had the university wrong


This message was edited Oct 20, 2009 12:28 AM

Calalily - did they say where one can get "K" to alleviate the deficiency?

Honeybee, good sources of potassium are wood ash (but know your pH first before using it), compost/aged manure, granite dust and greensand.

It's a good idea in Calalily's case to use an organic and a mineral source, organic for short term and mineral for long term.

I think there are big deposits of potassium chloride salts in the Southwest but I think it might contain too much salt and/or chlorine in it.

Shoe

Still waiting on soil test, but did get news on the plants from the plant doctor guy. With the exception of the pepper, they all have potassium deficiency. Could be caused by excess phosphorus. Excess nitrogen and calcium can also cause potassium deficiency as can wet soils or compacted soil. Cool weather (definitely not the problem) can cause potassium deficiency. Potassium is very soluble and can be leached from the soil by heavy rainfall or irrigation. Fish emulsion is a quick fix, and like Shoe said greensand and granite dust are long term solutions.

The pepper has cyclamen mites.

Also, someone mentioned earlier about excess iron. Excess phosphorus binds with iron and can cause iron deficiency, and excess zinc can cause iron deficiency, not the other way around.

Now, I'm through running to labs, my brain is tired from asking questions and trying to learn all this nutrient stuff.

"Now, I'm through running to labs, my brain is tired from asking questions and trying to learn all this nutrient stuff. "

I hear that! Makes your brain fizzle sometimes, doesn't it.

I hope the K deficiency is the problem, that can be easily remedied. ( I wonder why it only happens to certain plants though and not throughout the whole garden...can it, too, only happen in pockets, and right next to a healthy plant?)

I saw on your other post about ya'lls "resaca", a new word for me. Is that what we call a pond, or does water feed into it from the gulf or something? I remember you said your ground water was brackish, is resaca water fresh? Just curious.

Shoe, off to root fig and sage cuttings, listening to music ranging from Satchmo to Los Lonely Boys, enjoying the return of warm weather after two nights of freezing temps!

Calalily -

Shoe, the resaca is used by farmers for irrigation water. There are Irrigation Districts in both Cameron where I live and Hidalgo counties. We pay for water rights. Between here, the farm and two orchards we pay almost $2000 per year in water rights, not counting for the farm and orchards we pay $23 per foot acre of water used. Here we pay a flat yearly rate of around $300. The resacas are where water flowed when we had lots of rain and some are dug. They were started in the early 1900's. Some were hand dug and some were dug with steam shovels pulled with mules. The irrigation district puts water in the main resaca and the flow is controlled with gates. If a hurricane is coming in, they're also used to move water. There are some that are no longer kept filled, but if a hurricane or extremely heavy rainfall happens, the gates are opened to drain into those empty resacas. There are birds galore around them. The water can be a bit brackish, but the district opens the gates and runs fresh water in (if they have it) if the salt content gets too high. Some of the water comes from a resevoir and some from the Rio Grande.

I noticed today that the new growth is green!!!! The old leaves won't ever green up because that's how K deficiency acts. In trying to fix an unknown problem, I must have done something right. I should go out and take a photo. The potatoes have new green growth so I cut some of the bronzed leaves since they will eventually dry up and fall off anyway.

Overwatering can deplete K. I watched the irrigation system work last evening and the areas that are chlorotic are getting a double dose of water. Bud worked on adjusting the system, but it still needs tweaking. The soil drains pretty fast in those raised beds, so I'm thinking that contributed to the problem. I'm still learning to garden in this hostile environment!!

Honeybee, I've used Avid, not in this garden though because it's strictly organic. I had a garden center for many years and also grew african violets for a few years(one of those phases where I had to have every variety out there). If I can't get rid of the mites, I've got a couple hundred more peppers (yellow, orange, red and chocolate bell plus poblano) that will be ready to transplant in a few weeks. These were to give me a head start.

Wow! Quite an interesting history on those resacas. Pretty ingenious if you ask me! Thanks for the info.

Glad to hear the taters are greening up. Sounds to me like you'll get some spuds now. Congrats!

"I'm still learning to garden in this hostile environment!! "

Hehehe, yep, quite a bit different than Tenn, eh!? I'd be totally in the dark down there (but willing and interested to take it on!)

Happy Day, er, Night!
Shoe

Shoe, I tell people this environment is so different from TN it's like gardening on another planet!