Share The Seeds
Gardening Area => Growing questions and answers => Topic started by: Cane Blossom on July 19, 2013, 05:40:53 AM
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so my largest, fastest growing mimosa seedling's leaf-set has been yellow-ish ( neon yellow/green color) since it developed (i assumed they would eventually, but they haven't and now the second set is growing and it looks like it will be yellow too).
my other seedlings are growing considerably slower, and are fairly runty in comparison, but all their leaves came in green and healthy looking.
is this something to be concerned about?
what (if anything) can i do to fix it?
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I'm not sure about the yellow part. May be a lack in iron or something. I do know that my seedling stalled considerably at that stage and the growth really slowed down for a couple weeks. Now it's growing at a nice pace again.
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well it is growing very fast.....
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Weird! I just started a couple more hostilis seeds.
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Are all your seedlings growing in the same patch of soil, or in pots in the same environment?
There are several reasons why a seedling would grow pale, for instance:
1 - Overwatering. Excess water may be damping them off, or flushing nutrients away.
2 - Too cold temperature for this early stage of growth.
3 - Lack of nitrogen or some other nutrient issue, although this is unlikely in such a young plant growing in organic mix - but see 1.
4 - Not enough light.
5 - Soil too packed/not draining well.
6 - Some parasites, like nematodes.
Your best call is to see what's different between this seedling and the others, and guess/try with that in mind.
Good luck,
Mandrake
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the soil is pretty packed, and i am overwatering.
but the same could be said for the other seedlings.
i will ease off on the water, and see if it turns around.
if not i will transplant into decent soil (i just dug up dirt from the yard, same spot for all pots - identical conditions for all seedlings)
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Remember to simulate the natural conditions, it´s always sure success.
In this case, more light, less water.
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i doubt lack of light is a problem, almost all plants in this area require shade-cloth.
i have gotten some decent soil, and have decreased water.
they should be in optimum conditions now.
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I'm afraid I don't have much advice to offer on this as I have the same (or a similar problem) with one of my trees and so far haven't figured out why it's unhappy.
In total I have 5 mimosa trees between 5' and 8' tall. All of them are pretty much in identical living conditions. Same soil, same location, sun, watering schedule, etc. This one is the only one with these symptoms. I first suspected that I was over-watering so I reduced watering it about 3 weeks ago and drilled some extra holes in the pot (bucket) that it's growing in to improve drainage. It's still growing but even the new growth is pale. Since it hasn't improved any, I don't think it was a water issue after all. I'm thinking it must be some sort of nutrient deficiency now.. I will test the soil tonight.. maybe that'll give me a clue.
I found mealybugs on my largest tree yesterday but so far that appears to be isolated to just that tree. No sign of them on the pale tree. So I don't think there's any correlation.
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Here's a picture of the one that's yellowing. Toward the bottom of the picture you can see that some of the leaves have dropped off as well
(http://i44.tinypic.com/1447n8j.jpg)
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bizarre how it only seems to affect one plant, out of many under identical conditions...
i switched the soil to a higher quality, and reduced the watering, and there is no change.... (it has been a while since fixing those two suspected problems)
i guess i will be a while yet before we solve "the mystery of the yellow(ish) mimosa"
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In total I have 5 mimosa trees between 5' and 8' tall. All of them are pretty much in identical living conditions. Same soil, same location, sun, watering schedule, etc. This one is the only one with these symptoms. I first suspected that I was over-watering so I reduced watering it about 3 weeks ago and drilled some extra holes in the pot (bucket) that it's growing in to improve drainage. It's still growing but even the new growth is pale. Since it hasn't improved any, I don't think it was a water issue after all. I'm thinking it must be some sort of nutrient deficiency now.. I will test the soil tonight.. maybe that'll give me a clue.
I found mealybugs on my largest tree yesterday but so far that appears to be isolated to just that tree. No sign of them on the pale tree. So I don't think there's any correlation.
If your mimosas are in identical environment, i.e. they are in the same temperature (cold weather can make that happen in the case of mimosas), they grow in the same type of soil (with enough drainage, not too alkaline) and they receive the same amount of light and water, and only this one looks like this, I'd say you are left with two options: a nutrient problem, or a pest problem.
The pest is unlikely because it usually leaves other visible symptoms, and nematodes will hardly do that to an adult plant... So I'd try with nutrients. If you can measure the EC to be accurate with the concentration you give them, awesome. If not, feed her a conservative amount of good NPK fertilizer with a high N ratio (say 4:1:1 and above). You can try to apply it misting the leaves as well if you have foliar fertilizer. And for micro-nutrients, iron and (secondarily) molybdenum.
You can try that and check the new growth in two or three days. If that does not work, I'd re-pot it. And if that did not work either, as Cane said, we can open the official Mimosa Mystery thread.
Good luck,
Mandrake
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It could also be nutrient lock out due to calcium deficiency. A easy symptom to look for is twisted stunted new growth.
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Hmm maybe.. the new growth on the one in my picture does seem a bit more twisted and weak than the new growth on my others.. What's a good way to add calcium? Pulverized eggshell or oyster shells? I have a flock of chickens so I have a bunch of that on hand already.
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I think I just answered my own question after checking out 2centprofit's organic gardening link:
http://gilcarandang.com/recipes/calphos/
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It could also be nutrient lock out due to calcium deficiency. A easy symptom to look for is twisted stunted new growth.
Looking at saros' picture, I'm not that sure about that. Calcium is not mobile, it does not travel easily inside of the plant, and symptoms for Ca defficiency appear more clearly in new growth. Calcium defficiency will twist new growth and necrosize young leaves, but it should not make the whole plant turn yellow.
I'd try first foliar N fertilizer, but it's your pick.
Regards,
Mandrake
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Thanks Mandrake, I will try foliar N fertilizer first and see what happens before moving on to adding calcium, iron, etc.
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yea, i would have ruled this out a day or two ago, but this new leaf set coming in is smaller than its peers (which are now, not only no longer smaller, they are actually a tad bigger).
i think this may be a nutrient problem after all
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It could also be nutrient lock out due to calcium deficiency. A easy symptom to look for is twisted stunted new growth.
Looking at saros' picture, I'm not that sure about that. Calcium is not mobile, it does not travel easily inside of the plant, and symptoms for Ca defficiency appear more clearly in new growth. Calcium defficiency will twist new growth and necrosize young leaves, but it should not make the whole plant turn yellow.
I'd try first foliar N fertilizer, but it's your pick.
Regards,
Mandrake
The reason i said that was; if there are several plants in the same area and only one or two have problems it might be a nutrient uptake problem. If it is a uptake problem it would present its self in several different ways, n deficiency, mag deficiency etc. This could be caused by several things, calcium is not mobile but it does play a key part in nutrient uptake and distribution, lack of beneficial fungi in the soil, pests in the soil (mealy bugs on the root), a build of of fertilizer salts, too much water or a host of other things. Nutrients can not be directly absorbed by plants, there has to be something there to convert it for the plant.
I did jump the gun and did not provide a clear explanation with my other post., I apologize.
Mandrake is right start with a foliar spray, if that does not help start slowly eliminating other possibilities before changing the soil composition.
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sorry, to clarify further my post was directed towards saros. I´m usually no help with seedling problems as i have many myself.
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Can't it just be different genetics between the seeds that is making only these seedlings to be different?
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Yellowing of the leaves usually is a different issue ime. Wether it is nutritional, water/light related, or a bug infestation. But maybe it could be. I don't know enough about mimosa hostilis to say for sure.
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I just thought that, being all the other factors equal between all the other plants, like soil, light, water schedule and all, the only diference between them is the DNA.
But this is a conclusion that must only be used if all the other possible causes had been tested!
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I just thought that, being all the other factors equal between all the other plants, like soil, light, water schedule and all, the only diference between them is the DNA.
But this is a conclusion that must only be used if all the other possible causes had been tested!
For sure. I'm interested to see what happens.
Let us know when you figure guys figure it out.
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just an update:
the mimosa is green now. the leaves are considerably smaller than its peers, but there are more of them (a pseudo-bonsai of sorts). as for the size of the whole plant, it is no longer the biggest plant, but it isn't the smallest either.
of course the other mimosa have been so variable as of late, its hard to pin this yellowing issue down on anything. but basically my feeling is that if your mimosa seedling is yellow, its probably a non-issue (my healthiest mimosa has continually been under the initial conditions - still in the dense red dirt and everything).
the first pic is the formerly yellow seedling
the second is the biggest/healthiest mimosa
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Wow. Your seedlings look a lot nice than mine. Mine is a lot older than yours too! :o
How much sun does that little guy get?
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Wow. Your seedlings look a lot nice than mine. Mine is a lot older than yours too! :o
How much sun does that little guy get?
~12 hours of blazing heat a day (enough to sunburn the piss out of me)
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So they like being out in the sun? Even as a seedling?
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Mine seem to like as much sun as they can get.. though they weren't introduced to it until they were at least 8" tall.
I have noticed that on the brightest days, the leaves close up a bit.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that one has a very red trunk on the sun-facing side.. maybe coincidence but half is green and the half facing the sun is red. I'll get a pic.
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Yeah, I just put mine outside and it closed it's leaves in about 3 minutes. I could hear it saying, "Oh heeeeell no!" I think if i acclimated it to the outside it would benefit though. There's a lot of good sun out there.
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So they like being out in the sun? Even as a seedling?
yea, since germination.
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Something about that reminds me of syrian rue. If its grown outside from seed it will do great. But if you start it inside and try to acclimate it will do very poorly.
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Well, it looks like the problem with mine was that the soil was holding too much moisture.
After fertilizing didn't make a different I decided to repot it. I was shocked when I got in there and saw how soggy the soil was, and the roots hadn't developed much since the last time I re-potted it from a 1 gal pot to a 5 gal pot. It looked like I was in a rush or out of certain things that I normally add to the mix. This looked like potting soil + some additional perlite. Normally I like to mix in other things like coco coir and pine bark or some other chunky natural mulch type material.
I'm afraid I disturbed the roots quite a bit because they weren't substantial enough to hold the root soil together when I removed it from the old pot. Hopefully it forgives me and bounces back. That was Saturday morning, so far, it's not looking any worse than it did before so I'm hopeful
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Well, it looks like the problem with mine was that the soil was holding too much moisture.
After fertilizing didn't make a different I decided to repot it. I was shocked when I got in there and saw how soggy the soil was, and the roots hadn't developed much since the last time I re-potted it from a 1 gal pot to a 5 gal pot. It looked like I was in a rush or out of certain things that I normally add to the mix. This looked like potting soil + some additional perlite. Normally I like to mix in other things like coco coir and pine bark or some other chunky natural mulch type material.
I'm afraid I disturbed the roots quite a bit because they weren't substantial enough to hold the root soil together when I removed it from the old pot. Hopefully it forgives me and bounces back. That was Saturday morning, so far, it's not looking any worse than it did before so I'm hopeful
Yes, that was the next thing to do. The plant did have nutrient defficiency because the roots were not breathing well so they were not able to do their job.
Do not worry much about having disturbed the roots, repotting and cleaning roots involves cleaning and spreading them if they are packed. If the new soil has proper aeration, the mimosa should recover well, as long as the roots had no signs of rot. Keep watering under control and give her some time and lots of light and air.
Cheers,
Mandrake