Leaf edges showing purple but not undersides

[Ruth_10]

I have an LGS and NBD in a DIY self-watering planter on the deck. Recently the leaves have been showing purple around the leaf edges and tips, but not on the underside. This looks like a mineral deficiency, phosphorous perhaps, but I would have expected the leaf undersides to show color as well. Fertilization is from the "implanted" fertilizer per instructions when the unit was assembled.

What do you think it is?

DSC_7723 LGS planter leaf symptom.jpgDSC_7724 LGS planter leaf symptom.jpg

[rsg2001]

I believe it is a mineral deficiency. When I experienced something like this a couple of years ago, Carolyn suggested a seaweed foliar spray, which seemed to help somewhat.

[dice]

I had some of that this spring (on an Earl's Faux of all
things). I never precisely identified it. (Manganese? Chloride?
Hard to believe the second one.) I thought it might be
something that was actually there in the soil but that
was being inhibited from uptake by cold temperatures,
since the plant was pretty big for a transplant and had not
shown any symptoms while it was still indoors. Kind of
late in the season for that explanation now.

I sprayed it with a shotgun solution of strong kelp, alfalfa,
comfrey, and chickweed tea with fish emulsion, molasses,
and humic acid added until it dripped off of the leaves,
then poured the rest of what was in the spayer around the
roots. That seemed to do it. The purpling/bronzing was
followed by some chlorosis on big leaves that never actually
went away, even though new leaves stopped showing any
symptoms.

[dice]

PS: I concluded that (on the Earl's Faux plant), it was not
a phosphorus deficiency. Before the kitchen sink organic
blend, I had sprayed it with just fish emulsion mixed with
a mild (1/4 tsp/gal) dose of blossom booster (52% phosphorus),
and there was no response from the plant in terms of color
normalization after a week.

If you want to try a chelated mineral supplement that just hits
the major non-NPK nutrients, this Fertall stuff seems to cover
all of the bases except magnesium. (This was the only online
vendor for it that Google turned up. A local farm supply might
have it or be able to order it.)

http://www.groworganic.com/item_F173...ted_Miner.html

(I didn't think it was magnesium, either, because the potting
mix that the seedling was growing in before transplant had
dolomite lime and sul-po-mag in it from day one.)

[Ruth_10]

Thanks for the replies. The soil mix in the container is homemade and contains both dolomitic limestone and some kelp. The fertilizer bolus in the container is a commercial 10-10-10 or something close to that. Since I'm only seeing this in the container plants, it must be some trace mineral deficiency. Since I'm doing the container plants only for sport, I probably won't spray them with anything, but it would be nice to know what it is so I can correct my soil mix recipe.

[dice]

but it would be nice to know what it is so I can correct my soil mix recipe.

I hear that. I just picked Fertall out of a hat, more-or-less,
because the price on a gallon was comparable to what
several other liquid chelated trace mineral products charge
for a quart. I do not know whether lignosulfonates are a safer
chelating agent than EDTA, more effective in foliar feeding
than citric acid chelates, etc.

(By choice, I would want something that used humates for that,
but I don't know if any vendors sell a trace mineral product that
uses humates extracted from leonardite or compost for a chelating
agent. They doubtless use whatever they do based on cost and
the ability to easily pass through cell membranes.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignosulfonates

The blossom booster that I tried first (with fish) actually
had small amounts of boron, copper, and manganese in it,
but I used so little of it that, while that much had more than
enough phosphorus to correct a temporary phosphorus
deficiency, it may not have been enough of the trace element
to correct the deficiency, even if one of those trace elements
was the culprit. (I was unwilling to give it a full-strength
blast of the Blossom Booster in the soil and poison a bunch
of earthworms without necessarily fixing the problem.)