by Tony
Dark strawberry leaf tips
4:55 pm in Nutrients, Seeking Advice by Tony
Can any of you plant doctors diagnos this?
Strawberry leaf w/Black tips
On just one of the plants a couple of the leaves have dark tips as I hope you can see in the picture. I think they are some of the older leaves. Is this a deficiency in a particular nutrient? I hope it is not a disease as I did dug them up from the backyard.
I have been changing the solution every two weeks. Today will be the third change so far with these plants. If it is a deficiency maybe I chould change the solution sooner.
I have been using a solution called David’s Grow from here http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart.php?m=product_list&c=40 The first solution I had used our tap water, but now that I have my rain barrel hooked back up I have used that water to top off the resevoir last week and this weeks water.
Strawberry with some leafs w/Black Tips
Here is the full plant. The leaves in question are in the lower left corner. As you can see it looks pretty health and has flowers and a couple of berries starting to grow which are still green in the bottom of the picture.
I hope the solution change will do the trick. Any help or ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks
looks like the plant is flowering, which means it want’s some bloom nutes.
This link may help you:
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/119566/strawberry-fertiliser-guide.pdf
Thanks Owen. That file was great. There is a picture in it that shows what phosphorus deficiency looks like and it looks just like my leaves. I think I’ll change the solution once a week instead of two and see what happens.
Is this still a problem for you, Tony? My strawberries are having the same problem, but I think it was a PH problem(checked PH before the nutes, not after like a newb and corrected that). I’m waiting a couple of days to see if they improve after making the PH change(just changed water in all reservoirs, new nutes and now PH balanced). Also, plenty of light and fixed the algae problem by cleaning it all out and crafting a reflective cover for the outside of the reservoirs that is removable for maintenance. I hope to blog about the updates above soon(aside from a new video on my youtube channel). Anywho, I would be interested on your progress because I’m sure I could be missing the whole picture.
A PH problem could do that, but if it was a phosphorus deficiency from PH then you would likely be showing signs of other deficiencies too.
http://www.hydroponics.co.nz/images/large/pH_chart.gif
I take that back, if your water was a PH of 6 or lower it’s very likely that it was the cause of a phosphorus deficiency, and not any others.
this is a better chart:
http://www.progressivegardens.com/growers_guide/pH_availability_chart.gif
Wow that was weird coincidence. I just posted an update on my plants when you and @Owen commented here so take a look. http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/21/strawberry-update-day38-first-fruit-eaten/
My plants seem to be doing better now. I am going to chalk it up to a phosphorus deficiency and here is what I am thinking. I was changing the solution every two weeks and I was checking the ph every few days and correctlng it as needed with the ph down acid solution. I have been trying to keep it between 6 and 6.5. So I don’t think it was a ph issue. I think it sucked all the nutrients out. I switched to changing the nutrient solution out once a week and I am not seeing that same coloring. Also, my gallon container which I keep at 7 inches, the level goes down pretty quick. I just changed the solution 2 days ago and now it is down 3/4inch. I just top off with water between changings and recheck the ph.
I do have algae growing in the clear tubes going to the top from the pump and between levels. I am just going to let it go and see what happens in the long run. I do not have it dripping between levels. I have connected tubing into the cap of the upper bottle so that it come down the tube and lands in the net pot. I did this because Strawberry crowns to not like to be wet. There is no algae in the resevoir since it is completely covered. I hope this helps and if you would like detailed pictures I could do that as well.
Thanks for the charts. Those will be handy. Check out my comments to @silox since both came in at the same time. Have you happened to see any other for specific plants? I had printed out the chart from this post that shows ideal ph for many plants and it has strawberry listed as 6. http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/12/timing-of-lights-and-nutrients/
I am not sure what the proper protocol is here. Is it polite to reply individually to everyone who comments or is it ok to just reply to one of them answering all the questions. I have never used a blog or forum before.
@ajinil (Tony) I suspect there is a forum for debating forum etiquette. I don’t really stick to one method, myself, but often will reply separately to people in the same post, if their questions are going in different directions. If, however, they are similar questions I will generally answer in one post that covers it all. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but it seems to get the job done.
As far as PH charts, I think that all plants work pretty much the same way. Though strawberries (so i hear) like it a little more acidic, they will be able to absorb more phosphorous at 6.5 than 6, for example. The “ideal” range (or whatever they call it) is not for all plants, though it is for most. If you know from a reliable source (& I believe you do) that strawberries like it from 6.5 to 6 than you can draw that in on your chart and call that ideal. But when working outside of the “normal ideal zone” the cart can be really useful. If you can recognize a difference, you can see how the PH could help you.
Also, I may have mentioned this, but I’ll go into more detail; during the flowering and fruiting stages of plant growth plants eat up lots of phosphorous (P). Hydroponic nutes called “bloom”, “blossom”, “flowering”, & the such should be used rather than; “grow”, “vegetative”, extra. The nutes for the vegetative growth have lots of nitrogen (N), which is needed for growing green stuff. Flowering nutes have lots of P which is needed for flowering and fruiting. There is a limit to the total amount of nutes you can put into water with out harming your plants, so you will get the best yield if you provide close to the ratio of what the plant actually is using. If you are still using “grow” nutes, then the plants are sucking up all the P, and a small fraction of the N you are giving them. By reducing the N you can bump up the P really high. Not only with the nute mix stay usable longer, but the plant will absorb more P because it is so abundant in the mix. And if it absorbs lots of P then it make you lots of food.
If you were growing, say,lettuce or basil, then you would want to stay with the vegetative nutes until harvest as you eat the green stuff, and generally harvest before flowering anyway.
I should add; some flowering nutes for sale have really low N, as in too low, or even none. You can mix these with a little grow nute to get a good mix, but unless your really experienced I wouldn’t be bothered. I don’t really know why they even make them that way, maybe there is some function when growing pot. I don’t know off the top of my head what numbers you should be looking to avoid, but try to go for a flowering nute with a slightly higher first number than what other flowering nutes have.
By first number i mean the three number classification. Which if you don’t know: N-P-K so a
2-6-3 would be 2% nitrogen, 6% phosphate, and 3% potassium (periodic table calls it K, and when writing i do to). Actually a 2-6-3 would be a good flowering nute, as it has more P than N, but it has some N.