Plant Nutritional Deficiencies– Copper (Cu) Deficiency
Plant Nutritional Deficiencies' Copper (Cu) Deficiency
For a plant's growth, micronutrients play a significant role. One such micro-nutrients that adds significantly to a plant's growth is copper. The plant sucks these micro-nutrients through its roots and escalates the growth process efficiently. However, once nutrient deficiency occurs in a plant, the growth comes to a halt quite suddenly.
Copper deficiency, unlike many different defects in a plant, can occur anytime during its growth. These are known as immobile nutrients, and plants don't normally transport such using the vascular system.
Coppers can have a huge impact on how plants grow and develop. To learn more, check out this guide!
How Copper Contributes to Your Plants' Good Health
Copper plays quite a significant role in the process of chlorophyll formation if anything, it is another relatively essential nutrient for enzyme activity. Other than that, copper is used as another micronutrients for photosynthesis to take place in a plant.
Through this micro-nutrient, plants convert light energy into usable energy to grow. Another essential feature of copper is that it is necessary for the plant's respiration and aid in the plant's metabolism rate. If that's not all, copper is also a natural fungicide that you can use to kill any infestation prevalent in plants.
Signs of Copper Deficiency in Plants
Examining a plant's growth is significant to its overall development. When it comes to identifying copper deficiency in a plant, the leaves happen to explain their condition at best. For example, when you examine a plant's leaves, from the leaves' touch to the leaves color the examiner can identify the many deficiencies in a plant without any trouble. If the top part of the leaves turns yellow or pale green, it is quite likely that your plant has a copper deficiency in them.
The copper deficiency later turns a leaf's tip into a brown shade. The tips then curl and wither easily. Regardless of how much you take care of a plant with copper deficiency, the plant doesn't get to retain its former state. Even the new buds and shoots die in their initial stages.
These are things that happen to a leaf with copper deficiency:
- Leaves start to curl
- Leaves start to wither
- Necrosis at leaf margins and tips turns (dark) copper-gray
Fixing a Copper Deficiency
Once you find out that your plants have a copper deficiency, be sure to look for ways to take measures to improve their condition. If you may, you can consider the ways below, as these are for you to correct a copper deficiency in your plants.
Balancing the pH Levels
The plant's pH level plays a crucial role in a plant's growth. Whether you grow in a hydroponic growing system or have roots in the soil, the pH imbalance can block most of the plant's root nutrients. When you regularly check a plant's pH balance with soil meters or pH testers, you get to keep the pH levels under the required range.
For example, the ideal pH balance range is (between) 5.5 to 6.5. The reason is that these nutrients blend well in soil and water in this range something that can be quite impossible outside this range.
Using Copper Nutrients as a Fungicide
Next in line, when the pH levels are balanced, you can consider applying copper as a natural fungicide like copper sulfate.
For a plant to grow evenly, you need enough nutrients. These come from the soil and increase your growth process in general- one way of providing these necessary elements would be by spraying with foliar spray onto plants' leaves! The foliar spray provides the plants with the nutrient boost they need. The more foliar spray you use in your plants, the better they grow from the leaves growing better and buds blooming better.
Then again, be sure never to use foliar spray as a substitute for your plant's feeding or as a supplementation treatment when the temperature exceeds 75 F.
If that's not all, you can use a foliar spray by mixing it at a diluted strength. In this way, you'd get to avoid leaf burns in the plants. In contrast, you can also mix foliar spray with neem oil to have the spray sticking on your plants and while you are at it, don't forget to spray to the undersides and the inner corners of your leaves. As a result, your plants will only grow stronger and better.
Learn More about Nutritional Deficiencies in Plants
As a grower, tracking your plant's growth and understanding its nutrient deficiency can keep you struggling to quite an extent. With time, your plants will become more robust and healthier.Learn more about nutrient deficiencies at GroIndoor.com.