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Why do your tea plants have Yellow leaves?


In 2014, as we faced a learning curve with our tea plants, we experienced an outbreak of yellowing leaves. Yellow leaves is such a difficult problem to get to the foot cause on as it can be so many different things. Incorrect pH, Mineral deficiency or even frost/sun damage.
So for us to battle this issue it was time for an experiment. This meant testing was required. 

We ran two tests which would tell us if the last probability was viable or not.

Our first test, we ran a slow release fertilizer/nitrogen trial on a small section of plants to determine if it is a mineral deficiency. Trying to be very careful that we are not waking them from dormancy with too much fertilizer.

At the same time we also tested the pH of the wells and the potting media to figure out if it is improper pH. 

Essentially if we ruled these two out, we could decipher this was likely frost/sun damage.

After many hours of pH testing every scenario possible, we felt like we had our answer.

Too much wood ash in the soil. The pH was not ideal for the tea plants to grow. Tea plant prefer a pH of 4.5 to 5.5 to grow healthy.

How did we fix the yellow leaves in our USA grown tea plants?

We were going to use Biochar but it was too costly for how much we would need but we were able to make it work with a combination of sand, pine bark and a controlled release fertilizer.

 

The pH for tea matters a lot. 4.5 to 5.5 is their happy place. We have found that happy place for our tea plants but it took a great deal of testing and learning. Thankfully, we could find a cost effective way to manage it and as of now plant yellowing is no longer a major issue.

 

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