Lemon Tree Leaves

[Ross Carter]

Hi there,

The leaves on my lemon tree are looking a bit strange, is it some sort of vitamin deficiency, I don't think it's a grub.

cheers, Ross

[Andrew Cumberland]

This might help:

Mineral and nutrient deficiency

[Doug Hanning]

I have a brass siphon and I dont use it much as the plastic tube always gets blocked. Only use it fir seasol when I do the 150 plus fruit trees. A guy from sub tropic fruit club told me that most soil is zinc deficient and every few years I put zinc tetra something that is soluble zinc that can be bought in a 15 or 20kg bag from Farmland at acacia ridge and it was not expensive( 30 bucks I think). I notice the difference in tree foliage after this application

[Ron Hyde]

 Could be the case Jeff, if Ross is concerned about the chlorine affecting the trace elements, he could use tank water if he has it or alternatively Ros could leave a container of water out in the sun for a day before mixing with the trace elements, that would dissipate most of the chlorine

[Jeff Kiehne]

Brass Siphon Mixer may be worth looking at to spray the tree with trace elements  but can not find a place that sells in Australia  at a reasonable price  and other thing is tap water has chlorine which is an oxidizer and can effect trace elements .

[Andrew Cumberland]

Could also be iron, but the Trace Elements will fix it.  Like Ron says, you need to do it as a spray on the folliage. 

[Ross Carter]

Thanks Ron

[Ron Hyde]

Hi Ross

I used to have the same issue a number of years back, it is either Zinc or Magnesium deficiency, I supply my trees  with a dose of trace elements at the recommended rate on the packet you purchase by way of a sprayer at the end of winter every year and have not had any issues since (touch wood).

The affected leaves will not recover, however new growth will not be affected once you spray the plant. One thing to be aware of when mixing the trace elements in water, is that some brands are quite coarse and don't completely dissolve which causes continual blocking in the sprayer nozzle, to avoid this I borrow my wifes' mortar & pestle and give the powder a quick going over before mixing with water, this solves that issue.

Ron