Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Having some trouble with my pea plants, the lower leaves start to turn yellow, then eventually brown and then pretty much die off, and it totally drys up the pods was not sure what it is, I couldn't find a definite answer on google all i came across was either

- root rot
- lack of calcium

any ideas:) having some low yellow leaves on my tomato plant but i am not so worried about it, i am just assuming lack of sunlight


AP Peas: Low part of plant turning yellow/brown


AP Peas: The further up you go the greener it gets:P


Dirt Peas: yellowing of lower leaves


dirt tomato: lower yellow leaves


tomatoes coming along hazaa

Mine did that when the system was new. After 6 months the peas do much better. Points to a deficiency of some sort.

Iron ????

I'd expect more of the tomato leaves to show it though....

just add......well I would......but then look at my flop...

but I would add all the essentual minerals....pot ash...chelated iron...maxi crop..sea sole BUT that is me

Iron def will usually show up on newer leaves first and will look like the leaves are turning yellow but the veins usually stay green longer. Even when iron has been added, the affected leaves often stay as they are and the new leaves will come out nice and green. Chleated Iron is a good cure for this problem

Potassium def can show up as problems on older leaves getting spots that then die and then the whole leaf dies or it can show as a tendency to get powdery mildew. Maxicrop seasol or murate of potash can help against these problems.

In some cases yellowing of leaves can also be a nitrogen deficiency. Have you run any water quality tests? How is the cycling progressing. How much plants do you have in relation to the fish load. Tomatoes are greedy and use lots of nitrates. If it is nitrate def, you either need to finish cycling or add more fish.

And then with tomatoes, at least in my experience, the older leaves usually die off anyway as the vine grows longer and longer but I'm not that experienced with tomatoes.

With the peas, it looks kinda like one plant might have dried out but it is hard to tell from the picture.

As far as root rot from say being too wet all the time, this will usually show up as a wilty plant going all soft. How do you tell if the plant is wilty from lack of water or too much water? How wet is the media, does it go really really dry between flood cycles? If it does, then plant is probably wilting from lack of water or the roots having dried out. If the media is staying really wet and the top of the media is getting flooded which is a common problem when flooding a bed too deep, then root rot can be common, don't flood so deep if this is the problem, perhaps add more media on top so the top stays dry and perhaps flood less often if running on a timer.

I have lost tomato plants that were planted right under the water inlet to the grow bed to root rot. They don't like their stems always being wet.

So which is the problem, I guess we need more info to help you out?

I'm tending to agree with TCL... certainly not to disturbed with the lower leaves of the tomatos "yellowing" off... they do that as TCL noted...

Again, as TCL points out... tomatos are heavy nitrate feeders... the fruit set and development would seem to indicate that potassium and iron are probably sufficient...

Which leaves the most likely cause to be a nitrogen deficiency.... that makes it relatively easy to test... and resolve....

Add some seasol or maxicrop every couple of days for a week... and see what the result is....

It probably wont "green" up the older yellowed leaves... but you should see a "lusher" and greener appearance to the plants in general....

Try it and let us know...

Pee

thanks all for the replies:)

Adding all those supplements like seasol and maxicrop sound like a good idea , I just found it strange that both my dirt and aquaponic pea's had the exact
same problem:S

my current setup is quite small, the grow tub thing is around 100 litres and the fish tank is 200 litres with 5 goldfish in there, would it be wise
to add some more fish perhaps

I will add some maxicrop/seasol and see how it goes , I've already been adding it every now and then seems to help a bit, with seasol is it true the nutrients only
stick around for about 24-48 hours after that its too late for the plants to absorb it? having that light seasol tinge to the water makes me feel like its constantly working:P but i guess its trickery:)

Has anyone looked at the product trace elements. Saw a box of that yesterday among the pot ash and chelated iron boxes. Probably end up being sea salt. Yates makes it.

The nutrients are there, you just cant see them They stay in the system until the plants use them.

BT what is your nitrate reading?

cant seem to find my dang nitrate testy mcjigger at the moment, might have to go grab a new one

but now i've got another annoying problem its those damn hornworms eating all my tomatoes before they are done getting very depressing finding
all most of my tomatoes getting eaten, they must be pretty tough as the outside of the tomatoes are still pretty hard

elp

Did you know that you can apply Dipel and it won't harm the fish. You will also need to reapply regularly. They ingest the product as they eat and will start to die over the next few days. Good luck.

I had heard that dusting with regular flower will kill all those tomatoe pests.... im sure it woudnt hurt the fish...

jT