black leaf tips...any ideas?

picture of mt hood hops planted may 1st in potting soil and small amount of organic fertilizer. Any ideas why the leaf tips are black. I have cascade growing in another pot beside it with the exact same fertilizer and potting soil mix and ratio. im stumped....its been doing great up until now. should i be worried?

Something similar happened to a couple of my cascades and it ended up spreading to the point where the growth at the top of the shoots was killed off and the bines then started to produce growth out of the secondary shoots one I removed the infected areas. I think that my issue was viral, see here (bottom of the page)

i was worried about that. i saw the freshops page but what do i do? do i have to cut off the infected areas? the whole shoot?

scinerd3000 said:

i was worried about that. i saw the freshops page but what do i do? do i have to cut off the infected areas? the whole shoot?

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I got to it too late but the vines are still growing after I removed those specific areas. At this point, I'd just removed the leaves that are impacted and try not to top the bine.

Looks like it could be nutrient burn. I swear by this stuff for for virus issues:

http://pond-o-mania.com/browseproducts/SM-90-Organic-Based-Pest-Inhibitor.html

I've got the same stuff... It's from over fertilizing. You can either trim it, or let it be. I left mine and all the new growth is coming in just fine.

how will i know if its not from over fertilizing? i dont want to leave it and have it be a virus. so far those are the two things on the table. The thing that bothers me is that today is the first day this happened. It had been growing perfecly fine with no deformation on the leaves. then today its black. i havent added fertilizer since i planted it

scinerd3000 said:

how will i know if its not from over fertilizing? i dont want to leave it and have it be a virus. so far those are the two things on the table. The thing that bothers me is that today is the first day this happened. It had been growing perfecly fine with no deformation on the leaves. then today its black. i havent added fertilizer since i planted it

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Remove the leaves and wait and see, that is what I did. It'll get much worse alot quicker if it's anything else IMO.

EDIT: I'll see if I have any pics at home to compare. I seem to recall that entire plants were having issues, not just specific areas on particular plants.

It's so uniform, I wouldn't suspect a virus. It looks like nutrient burn, or possibly a pH issue, which can cause many different issues. Especially if you just started getting a lot of sunshine. I would recommend leaving it alone, or at most, give it a good flush of water with H2O2 (1 ounce 3% hydrogen peroxide in 1-quart water).

mr x said:

It's so uniform, I wouldn't suspect a virus. It looks like nutrient burn, or possibly a pH issue, which can cause many different issues. Especially if you just started getting a lot of sunshine. I would recommend leaving it alone, or at most, give it a good flush of water with H2O2 (1 ounce 3% hydrogen peroxide in 1-quart water).

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why do you say sunshine? come to think of it its been very hot in socal and very sunny....what would that do? ill have to get some litmus paper

A plant that has too much fertilizer or a pH issue, will really show the effects once you start hitting it with intense sunlight. Either imbalance can make it difficult for the plant to uptake the water it needs under the light/heat, and tip burning is a common effect. The effects will be magnified with a young plant that has a small set of roots to supply it.

mr x said:

Looks like it could be nutrient burn. I swear by this stuff for for virus issues:

http://pond-o-mania.com/browseproducts/SM-90-Organic-Based-Pest-Inhibitor.html

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Just to make sure no one gets confused. This product will not kill viruses. Once a virus gets into your plant, you just have to keep it happy and hope it survives. What you can do is to kill the nasty little bugs that transmit the virus and thereby prevent it from spreading to your plants. If the rhizome came infected, then the plant will always be infected - unless you have access to a tissue culture lab.

As to the black tips, +1 on the too much nutrients. Virus symptoms usually are spots or streaks, typically yellow, going black/brown as they age.

How wet do you keep the soil?

Too wet soil for too long can cause Oxygen Stress on the root system and will show itself as a Nutrient issue.

I live in North CA and I noticed something similar on my Mt. Hood and Cascades and the same all about killed my Liberty (it was just coming up - but I think it will recover). I think it may be from over watering in conjunction with the hot spell we just went through. At the moment they are all first year plants in different oak barrels with drilled out drainage holes. The bines are all about 6 inches to about a foot tall. I'm going to try cutting out watering for a couple days to let it dry out a little. When I checked out the soil the other day it was still rather moist so maybe this will help. I'll report back.

pjj2ba said:

Just to make sure no one gets confused. This product will not kill viruses.

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It will inhibit the effects of viruses, which is just as good for most purposes.

GilaMinumBeer said:

How wet do you keep the soil?

Too wet soil for too long can cause Oxygen Stress on the root system and will show itself as a Nutrient issue.

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That is true as well. That's why I recommended using a light H2O2 solution as a rinse.

i dont know how much water im supposed to be giving it. Maybe quart or two max a day....how much should i be watering them?

Young plants don't need as much water. It depends on what your drainage is for the most part. Maybe start spacing the waterings over every third day. But it depends on your weather as well.

yea there less than a month old. i space the waterings out and see how that does it. It had been pretty hot and i was worried about them drying out..dAMNIT. the cascades are doing great right next to them though which is why its odd...unless mthood requires less water

I slowed down on the watering and all seems to be going well. I'm now watering about every 2-4 days depending on the weather. It appears that they have recovered from overwatering.

Plants can be amazing things. Just remember, as they grow and expand their root ball and foliage, you'll need to pick up the watering. Not rocket science, but just thought I' throw that out. Overwatering/overfertilizing young plants is probably the number one lesson we all learn the hard way. You're ahead of the curve now.

none of the new growth has developed the black curling leaf tips so i think im in the clear. I cut back waterings a bit but i havent cut off any of the leaves. Providing it doesnt spread i think im good. knock on wood. Thanks for the help thus far. Ill post a pic soon of how its looking

black leaf tips are gone...not sure what it was from but there growing nicely. I cut down waterings to 4 times a week and it seems to be doing very nicely. the smaller growth however never took off due to whatever that black stuff was. hopefully it keeps going. thanks for the help.

I had some black tips show up on a few leaves yesterday, and I'm certain it's from nutrient burn. I swore I'd never do it, but I think I pushed a little hard on the fertilizer, followed by a few days of sunny 80 degree-plus weather with no rain. I'm guessing the combination of too much fertilizer and not enough water led to the burn. It's cool and cloudy today, and we're looking at rain for at least the next few days so, hopefully, my transgression will be washed away.

I'd venture that it was frost damage.

ChrisS68 said:

I had some black tips show up on a few leaves yesterday, and I'm certain it's from nutrient burn. I swore I'd never do it, but I think I pushed a little hard on the fertilizer, followed by a few days of sunny 80 degree-plus weather with no rain. I'm guessing the combination of too much fertilizer and not enough water led to the burn. It's cool and cloudy today, and we're looking at rain for at least the next few days so, hopefully, my transgression will be washed away.

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im guessing thats exactly what it was. Although i had watered it but it was really hot and it makes sense that the soil probably dried out a bit. there touchy.

as for frost damage i doubt it...im in southern california and its been way hot.

any ideas? somethings eating it. i have been spraying it with a organic pesticide safe for edible fruits and vegetable trees and as far as i know its working so far.

im also worried about the discoloration of the leaf with the holes in it. i gave it more fertalizer but im wondering if it has to do with disease or just lack of nutrients? The black things as far as i can tell arnt any type of insect but whatever they are there either dead or peices of soil that stuck to the leaves. nothings moving on there and theres also no aphids so far...

Don't get too wound up with individual leaves that have been damaged. They are most likely going to die off. The main thing is to make sure new leaves are being produced and that they are healthy.

do i remove the dying leaves? and does that one with the holes constitute dying?

Leave them alone. They probably still function to a certain degree, but will most likely be the first to die. If they begin to change color, you can cut them off.

My lower leaves are getting eaten a bit like yours but whatever it is its not bothering my leaves higher up on the plant. Same thing happened last year and it didn't hurt the plant.

scinerd3000 said:

i dont know how much water im supposed to be giving it. Maybe quart or two max a day....how much should i be watering them?

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Ain't growin' stuff fuuuuuuuuuuun?

I water and then poke my finger in the dirt everyday after until the soil feels dry again and, then I water again. For new plants (Less than a year in the ground) a light watering to about 2 or 3 inches is all that is needed. For olders plants (mine) I do a periodic deep, slow watering. I let the water soak the box for a good 3-10 minutes to ensure a good soaking.

On the topic of virus: Once the virus is in the soil or plant, it's always there. chemicals can treat the plant, "maybe" prevent spread into the root, but it's performance or health will always suffer. At that point, all one can do is destroy the plant to avoid further contamination. This is best done by burning. the same goes for the soil. If you can't burn sterilize the soil then you need to remove it completely.

And to make it all the more interesting, I have recently learned that Zinc deficiencies mimic viral infections. So, the only real way to tell is to cut a root and look at the section.

Cool night air and high winds can also "wind burn" the leaves and have the same appearance. Black wilted tips. The younger and frailer materials suffer the most.

This is my first year and I think all of this has happened to my plants.. Something started eating the leaves but I could never find out what was doing it. I sprayed all kinds of stuff on them and 3 out of 5 has plants halted growth. I finally found a snail on one of my plants and then a catepillar of some sort. So I got the slugo organic stuff and the eating of the leaves has slowed. I also got some of the BT stuff for the catepillar's but have not applied it yet. I also had the browning of the leaves from either to much water, sunlight or fertilizer.. some leaves turned yellow and I cut them off.


So take their advice and just dont do anything untill you are sure of whats going on.


All is getting better slowly now..

These are some general procedures for growing healthy plants of any kind based on questions in this thread.

1. When watering, always try to use enough water to give the whole root system a good soaking. This is true for all plants, orchids to cactus. The frequency of watering changes plant to plant, not the amount of water. If you just give the plant enough water to wet it each time, salts from the water will accumulate. This is more an issue with indoor plants. Outdoor plants tend to get soaked when it rains.

2. Let the soil dry out between watering. If the soil is always wet you will get rot. Along the same lines, make sure you have good drainage.

3. Generally speaking, there are three things that will cause the tips to brown: over watering, under watering, and over fertilizing.

4. If your soil is not rich, use a fertilizer with trace elements. Iron, magnesium, manganese... You can tell if you have trace element deficiency, the leaf will be green where the veins are, and pale in between.

Once again these are general guidelines for schrubberies. Best of luck, maybe if we all start growing our own, the hop prices in the hbs will come back down a bit??

yea every year it seems like theres new problems. This year i have bugs eating the lower portion of the plant and on the top half the leavs are green but curling....

Gila- As for cross sectioning a root, how dangerous is that to the plant? these are second year so im assuming the root system is somewhat decently developed

It looks like you have them in store bought potting soil? Often that stuff is very rich, packs down tight and restricts drainage. If the roots are always wet this can become a big problem.

Sean said:

It looks like you have them in store bought potting soil? Often that stuff is very rich, packs down tight and restricts drainage. If the roots are always wet this can become a big problem.

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even if i drilled fat holes in the bottom? When i water i saturate the soil until it starts coming out the bottom. Then i leave it and water every other day...

It may be fine, just from the picture it looks kind of dense. The soil should dry out with in two days or so. If it does it's probably fine. Sounds like you are watering properly: soak them good, then don't water til the soil has dried out (not bone dry, just dry).

As they are in pots, you might just take one to the nursery, or county extension service and ask their opinion.

Funny thing is in a few years you will probably have huge beautiful productive bines.

ok so im convinced at this point that they have vermicular wilt. I did some digging at it is indicitive of death from death from the bottom up as well as leaf curling tword the top both of which i have. ALso some site talked about death of tissue startiong at the veins of the leaf which is also happening. I lost the reference site but i will try to find it- im quite hammered... Anyone ever dealt with this?