Garlic leaves turned yellow ... Why does garlic turn yellow in spring? What to do? How to prevent this phenomenon? Maybe this is a disease? Then what to process? Or maybe he is missing something? How and what to feed? This phenomenon is not uncommon in our gardens. Usually we see that the leaves of garlic begin to turn yellow from the tips. Then this yellowing increases, the development of the plant is delayed accordingly, the bulbs are formed smaller. The reasons may be different.
The main causes of yellowing of garlic leaves in the spring
Firstly, the leaves of winter garlic turn yellow in early spring, after it comes under severe frost. This is one of the reasons.
Secondly, this can happen if the bulb is infected with any fungal disease.
These are just two reasons. They are as if obvious, we ourselves can determine the cause of yellowing of the leaves of garlic. In the morning we woke up, and on the grass frost, puddles turned into thin ice. Or they pulled out a bulb and saw that on the bottom, the roots turned black, mold appeared.
What to do after spring frost? If garlic caught a light frost, there was a freeze, then it is advisable to immediately treat it, spray the leaves with a solution of any stimulant - HB-101, Epin, Zircon and others.
Garlic disease
At the very beginning, I talked about how garlic can turn yellow from fungal diseases. They can be the cause of yellow leaves. It is difficult to treat fusarium, bacterial rot - it is easier to prevent. What to do? Before planting the cloves had to be disinfected - pour a weakly pink solution of potassium permanganate, or the drug "Maxim", or the drug "Fitosporin" for 15-25 minutes. If you did not do this before planting, then you can water the beds with these solutions for prevention.
But sometimes there are no such obvious signs of the cause of yellowing. There were no frosts, the root on the bulb was clean. What is going on? What to do? What to process? Or maybe you need to feed?
How to feed garlic in spring
One of the reasons why the leaves of garlic planted in the winter turn yellow is the lack of nutrients. More often than not, he lacks nitrogen or potassium. What to do? For feeding, you can use mineral or organic fertilizers.
Loosely spacing aisles. Make a shallow (1-2 cm) groove. Pour (sow) granular fertilizers there, for example, urea (urea) or some complex mineral fertilizer. Sprinkle the granules with earth. After that, water the entire garden bed with row spacing abundantly so that the fertilizer dissolves, since any plants absorb nutrients only in dissolved form. After that, you can mulch the wet bed with dry earth or compost so that the soil remains moist for as long as possible.
This is one application of mineral fertilizer.
The second option. First dissolve dry mineral fertilizer in water (1 tablespoon of urea or Fertica Lux per 10 liters of water), pour. Consumption - 10 liters of solution per 1 square. m. This option is even preferable, since liquid fertilizer immediately gets to the roots of plants.
What else can be done? You can do foliar top dressing. It is especially useful for young plants. You can feed complex mineral fertilizer or potassium sulfate, which is also often not enough garlic. The rate of potassium sulfate is 1 teaspoon per 1 liter of water. Set your sprayer to a fine spray and spray all the leaves abundantly. This should be done in the evening in dry, calm weather, so that the droplets of the nutrient solution fall on the leaves, do not dry out in the wind, but are completely absorbed.
From organic fertilizers for feeding, I use an infusion of mowed green grass or weeds, with the addition of wood ash. How to make such a green fertilizer, I told in detail in the article "Tomatoes - how to feed and what are the top dressings." With a solution of this liquid "green fertilizer" you can water the plants under the root or do foliar top dressing.
Garlic Planting Dates
There is another reason for the appearance of yellow leaves on garlic. This is a failure to meet the landing dates. Beginning gardeners plant garlic in the early fall, for example, in early September. And you need to plant it about two to three weeks before the onset of stable cold weather. This is November for the Krasnodar Territory, and the end of September-October for the middle lane. Why is that? He should have time to only take root, but not to grow. If we plant it early in the fall, then in the spring, after the snow melts, yellow leaves will appear on the garlic that has sprouted too early. They just froze.
Pests of garlic: onion fly, stem onion nematode
Pests can lead to yellowing of garlic leaves. Inspect the plants carefully. You noticed small worms at the base of the leaves. These are the onion fly larvae. What to process? You can get rid of them with a saline solution. To do this, take 200 g of table salt, dilute it in 10 liters of water. This solution is sprayed. The worms will be gone.
The reason that the leaves of the garlic turned yellow may be the stem onion nematode. This is perhaps the biggest nuisance. Fighting her is useless. It can live in soil, without water, food for 8-10 years.
What does an infected plant look like? The plant begins to wither. The leaves brighten, curl, the bulb with cracks begins to rot. Dig out one head with yellowed twisted leaves. If it is damaged by the nematode, then on the bottom of the bulb there will be rotten roots and a white or pinkish coating - these are small worms that can only be seen through a magnifier with a 10-20-fold increase - they are 1.5 mm long and 0.5 mm thick. A white or pinkish coating on the bottom of the bulb is a cluster of pests. What to do? Such plants will have to be destroyed. Next year, garlic, onions, plant on another bed.
What to process? Currently, there are no effective means to combat the nematode. It is recommended to plant the garlic cloves in hot (40-45 ° C) water for at least 2 hours or in 3% sodium chloride solution for 25-30 minutes at a temperature of 20-22 ° C before planting. Such treatment will not completely destroy the nematode, but will significantly reduce its number and inhibit the spread of the pest. In the future, be more careful about the selection of planting material.
The nematode loves acidic soils. Therefore, decontaminate the infected area with lime or dolomite flour. The nematode lives in plant debris, lumps of earth. Sow marigolds and calendula (marigolds) on infected areas. Marigolds and calendula attract the nematode with their smell; it goes to this smell, sticks to the roots, and the juice of these plants is poisonous to her and she dies.
Let us now summarize, briefly list the reasons why garlic may turn yellow.
- Shoots fell under the freeze.
- The soil lacks the basic nutrients - nitrogen, potassium.
- They planted it too early - it began to grow before the onset of cold weather.
- Planting material or soil is infected with pathogenic fungal spores or stem onion nematode.
- Onion fly larvae have been damaged.
- Drought, insufficient watering, and dense soil can also cause yellowing.
Having determined the reason why your garlic turns yellow, you will be able to answer the questions yourself - what to do, how to process and feed.