Plant leaves turning yellow with brown spots.
I know it is frustrating when the leaves of our plants are turning yellow with brown spots, especially if we don’t know why.
For this reason, here I leave you a series of reasons why the leaves of your plant are turning yellow or brown.
Plant Leaves Turning Yellow With Brown Spots:
1. Mineral deficiency
When plants lack the minerals necessary to thrive, their leaves turn yellow.
Most soils contain a good mix of minerals, but they are not always available to the plants.
In addition, floods and drought can also block plant minerals.
When the plant does not find all the minerals it needs, you will soon see that its leaves begin to yellow so that the nerves can become very visible as you can see in the image above.
Normally, due to a lack of iron or magnesium.
How can we differentiate which mineral is missing?
Green veins on older leaves, yellowish leaves with green veins can mean magnesium deficiency.
Apply Epsom salts as a leaf spray every two weeks or add fertilizers rich in agnecium.
Crunchy brown leaf edges and green veins in young leaves iron deficiency, common in acid-loving plants, grown in alkaline or neutral soils. It grows in ericaceous compost pots.
Slow-growing yellow plants often lack nitrogen. Set it with a good diet of liquid, nitrogen-rich foods, followed by a slow-release diet and mulch.
Purple Shades, yellow leaves speckled with purple can signify potassium deficiency, especially if the plants are not fruiting well. Remedy with a dose of liquid food rich in potassium for tomatoes.
2.Exposure to air currents
If you have a houseplant in a transit area or in a room where there are drafts, it may happen that the tips of its leaves turn yellow.
In severe cases, the entire affected leaf could dry out.
To avoid it, it is important not to put it in passageways, and protect it from air currents generated by the air conditioning, as well as from outside.
Cold air currents on tropical plants often cause the leaves to turn yellow and fall off.
If your plant is near an air conditioning vent in the summer or a drafty window in the winter, move it to a less turbulent location.
Other symptoms to consider:
Stagnant Water: Poorly drained soils fill easily, filling the soil air pockets with water and drowning the roots.
Digging organic matter helps open heavy soils, or you can install drainage pipes.
Cooling: Yellow leaves in winter can be cold-induced chlorosis, caused by the slowdown of soil microbes in cold climates.
They usually recover, but covering the plants with wool and vegetable cloches will keep them warmer for longer.
3. Irrigation problems
Lack of water:
It is easy to detect if you see that the leaves are wrinkled or yellowing, that the plant looks sad, and that the flower buds (if any) fall or dry, it means that we have not watered enough.
But you should not worry, it is relatively easy to recover a plant that has been thirsty.
You just have to water the plant and wait for the soil to moisten. If it is a garden plant, it will be enough to water it until the soil becomes stagnant.
To prevent this from happening again, you should only shorten the days in between irrigation, that is, if you watered your plant every third day, now you should water it every other day.
Excess of water
Over-watering is one of the most frequent problems when growing potted plants, with yellowing of the lower leaves being one of the most characteristic symptoms.
If the substrate turns greenish, the young leaves turn brown, and no growth is observed, it is very likely that we have watered excessively.
Recovering it will be difficult, but if it is not serious you can do the following:
First, removed from the pot be careful not to break the root ball.
Wrapped in several layers with absorbent paper.
Now, it is placed in a room where a lot of natural but not direct light enters for 24 hours.
The next day, it is planted in the pot again.
After 3 or 4 days, the plant is watered again.
To prevent it from happening again it is important to improve the drainage of the substrate and control the risks.
If before you water the plant every 2 days and it got into this condition add a few more days before watering. Some plants like succulents can be water every 20 days, it just depends on the environment.
4. Wrong substrate
If you grow your plants in pots be sure to use potting soil or improve the soil by adding river sand.
Also, check that the drain hole is not plugged.
If you cultivate directly to the ground check that the water does not accumulate in the area.
If it accumulates you will have to improve the land or cultivate another type of plant.
5.Virus infection
Viruses are small microscopic parasitic organisms that infiltrate the cells of a plant’s system, distorting and slowing growth and leaving the leaves yellow, stained and streaked.
Since there is no cure, the only way to deal with a virus is to prevent it from infecting your plants. Viruses can be carried by aphids and other insects, so keep pest control.
Weeds also act as host plants.
Other symptoms to consider:
Stain: Common in cucumber mosaic virus, which infects cucumbers (cucumbers and squash) and potatoes and many other plants.
The wrinkled leaves accompanied by stained yellowish spots can signify the tobacco mosaic virus, which can affect tomatoes, aubergines, and peppers. The edges of the leaves can also be dried.
Stunted and twisted growth: Most viruses make plants look “weird” curly leaves, sometimes with white streaks or stunted stems, and brown spots on fruits are virus symptoms.
6.Fungal diseases
In the case of mold and dust, the growth of fungus is obvious, in this case, as a layer of dust on the leaf.
Mainly, you won’t see fungi infecting your plants; all you’ll notice are the symptoms, which usually include sickly-looking, yellow leaves.
Other symptoms to consider:
Rusty orange stains: Rust appears first as orange stains the affected leaves turn yellow and die prematurely.
There is no cure, but it can delay the spread by removing the affected leaves.
Wilted: If a healthy plant turns yellow and then wilts, it means that a fungal disease is infecting the water-carrying vessels so that the plants die of thirst.
When you reach the edges of the greenhouse, you will have for years to grow in clean compost bins or bags.
Black spots: Yellow rose leaves with black or dark purple spots are a clear sign of black spot.
One way to rescue any mushroom plant is:
You should carefully remove the plant from the pot.
Then, you must remove the parts of the plant that is infected with the fungus.
Then you must disinfect the pot where the plant was and fill it with a new substrate. And now you only have to plant your plant again.
It is important to avoid excess moisture, as this can cause fungus to form again.
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7.Pest
Plants turn yellow when attacked by sap-sucking insects because they are literally sucking the life out of them.
Rotate the affected leaves and look at the bottom as this is where the pests will hide.
Other symptoms to consider:
Cobwebs: You will need a magnifying glass to identify red mites, but their “cobwebs”, like silk, are one of the signs of this type of pest.
Spray with insecticidal soap or release the biological control Phytoseiulus persimilis.
White moths: whiteflies are invisible as long as the plants are not disturbed, but they graze the leaves and float in the clouds.
Marchited: This generally means damage at the root level. What you should do in this case is remove the plant and wash the roots without fertilizing and then replant the plant with a new and nutrient-packed substrate.
8. Lack of light
When plants don’t have enough light they cannot photosynthesize. In these cases, the leaves turn whitish.
To fix it, you will have to move them to where they are in the sun.
If you have plants indoors and this happens to you frequently, you have to verify if your plant is suited for a low light environment.
9. It leaf are falling
It is important to make sure the plant is not going to a normal prosses, for example.
If it is fall and you have deciduous trees that begin to turn yellow, it is because they are falling, that is, as the plants prepare to overcome winter in the best possible way, the leaves are producing less and less chlorophyll.
Thus, when the production of chlorophyll stops, carotenoids emerge, which are necessary to transfer the energy from sunlight, and are what give the leaves that beautiful yellow color.
10.Excess light
Excessive lighting can also cause yellow spots on leaves, especially in shade plants.
This happens a lot with zamioculca plants (eternity). Some grow in full sun, when they are shade plants.
Make sure you know the lighting requirements of your plants.
11.Normal aging
The yellowed leaves look alarming, and sometimes they are. But occasionally, plants need to lose some of their leaves.
We are familiar with leaf drop, but what is less known is that trees always do this, removing their older leaves throughout the year.
If you have ruled out all the possible problems mentioned above, chances are that your plant is removing its old leaves, so that new leaves will grow.
General tips to keep in mind
If the plant leaves are turning yellow or brown.
1. Remove the yellow leaves carefully as these leaves are weak which can attract disease and pests.
2.If the plant is planted in a pot, you should check if the plant has enough room to grow.
If the plant doesn’t have enough space, you should consider transplanting it into a pot slightly larger than the plant.
3. Make sure that the soil has the correct pH for the plant, and that the plant is receiving the necessary nutrients to grow healthy.
4. Use compost and composted soils according to the needs of your plant.
5. Make sure your plant is getting the necessary sun. There are plants that grow better in direct sunlight, while others grow better in semi-shade or in shade.
So you must make sure what is the solar need that your plant needs.
6. Avoid using fertilizers, pest control products or fungicides with high chemical contents, since these products can burn the plant.