Nitrogen Deficient Plant: Understanding the Symptoms and Ways to Deal with It
Spotting nitrogen deficient plant isn’t difficult or complicated because there are obvious signs. All you have to do is paying a closer attention to your plant.
When you understand the details of your plant’s nature, it would be easy to see if there’s something wrong with it. So, what should you know about nitrogen deficiency, anyway?
The Importance of Nitrogen
Do you know that nitrogen has an important role in plants’ growth because it affects chlorophyll formation, as well as the proteins, nucleic acids, and amino acids. All of these components are vital for the plants because it’s related to their functions.
Nitrogen is the building block of cells, as well as the enzymes, DNA, auxins, membrane proteins, and amino acids.
The nitrogen deficient plant means that the plant doesn’t get enough nitrogen. Thus, it affects the development and growth. In most cases, such a deficiency will obstruct, delay, or even damage the plant’s growth. Not only it won’t produce the expected results, but your plants will look sick and unappealing.
The Common Symptoms
As it was stated before, when your plant doesn’t get enough nitrogen, it will show signs. There are some obvious deficiency symptoms of nitrogen in plant:
• Chlorosis. It’s the stage when older leaves turn yellow. Whereas the veins of the leaves remain green, the margins and the tips turn yellowish.
• Stunted growth. Be suspicious when the leaves are smaller or the stems are shorter. These are the obvious signs that there is something wrong with your plant.
• Spindly (and thin) stems. The stems look weak and thin, very sensitive to break and damage.
• Delayed fruit and flowering formation. When the flowering and fruit production is delayed or when your plant doesn’t produce as often (or as much) as usual, it’s highly likely that it doesn’t have enough nitrogen.
• Yellowing plant. When your plant turns yellowish or pale green in its overall appearance, there must be something wrong.
Dealing with the Issue
After you have spotted nitrogen deficiency symptoms in your plant, here are some things to do right away:
• Test the soil. You need to do the test to check the nutrient’s contents and level. The result can provide insight about the deficiency’s extent. It will also help you determine your next step.
• Provide fertilizer. The nitrogen deficient plant should be fertilized. Go with the ones that have high level of nitrogen, like urea, nitrate, or ammonium. If you prefer organic types, go with manure or compost. But the type of fertilizer should be based on the previous soil test.
• Crop rotation. It can also help with nitrogen deficiency problem. To maintain the fertility of the soil, you can alternate having plants that demand high level of nitrogen with those that can fix the nitrogen level.
• Mulching. Not only mulch can help with soil moisture conservation, but it can also prevent nutrient leaching. When you apply mulch, you make sure that the nitrogen is available and accessible, so your plants will have enough of it.
In the overall end, you need to have a watchful eye of your plants. As soon as you see the symptoms, actions can be taken immediately. You can prevent nitrogen deficient plant issue with thorough and careful monitoring and observation.