Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

Discussion and tips for growing all types of peppers
Setec Astronomy
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Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#1

Post: # 68089Unread post Setec Astronomy
Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:18 pm

I guess this is the usual seedling quandry--why is this happening? Too much water, too little? Too much fertilizer, too little?

Everything was going along swimmingly...and then:


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Sue_CT
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#2

Post: # 68090Unread post Sue_CT
Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:22 pm

hey look very wet. What did you use for soil? By the way, those look more like peppers. The tomatoes don't look as yellow.

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worth1
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#3

Post: # 68091Unread post worth1
Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:28 pm

The bottom embryonic leaves always turn yellow.
If the containers feel heavy let dry out.
If not they might need a pinch of fertilizer.
Worth
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rossomendblot
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#4

Post: # 68092Unread post rossomendblot
Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:29 pm

Overwatering I would guess. Done it myself many times with pepper seedlings, it's very easy to over water them when they are small. This year I didn't water my pepper seedlings for over a month after pricking out from a seed tray in to 6 cell trays. Now they're in bigger pots I only water them when the pots feel really light or the plants start drooping a bit. They're the best pepper plants I've ever grown.

Let the soil dry out and they should start to get the green back in their leaves.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#5

Post: # 68093Unread post Setec Astronomy
Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:50 pm

Sue_CT wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:22 pm By the way, those look more like peppers.
Yes, it's a pepper, I posted this in the pepper subforum. But this tray also has some tomatoes that are also yellowing on the lower leaves, unlike my other trays...so that might be a clue.
rossomendblot wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:29 pm Overwatering I would guess. Done it myself many times with pepper seedlings, it's very easy to over water them when they are small. This year I didn't water my pepper seedlings for over a month after pricking out from a seed tray in to 6 cell trays. Now they're in bigger pots I only water them when the pots feel really light or the plants start drooping a bit. They're the best pepper plants I've ever grown.

Let the soil dry out and they should start to get the green back in their leaves.
I've got the peppers lumped in with my tomatoes, am I supposed to be treating the peppers differently? I may have given them extra water by feeding them a little more 1/2 strength liquid fertilizer when they started turning yellow, but the other culprit might be that when I up-potted them a few days ago I got the idea to do the "Ami" transplant dip since I have an expired Actinovate pouch I'm trying to use up. It may be I waterlogged them doing that.

The pictured plant looks worse now, I took that picture this morning. Also, as noted above, I have some tomato plants in this tray that some are also getting yellow lower leaves, so maybe it's something I've done to this tray, although not every plant in the tray (peppers and tomatoes) is having this problem...so it's not consistent.

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Sue_CT
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#6

Post: # 68094Unread post Sue_CT
Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:06 pm

If they are still getting worse, I suspect it really is over watering and if you would like to try to save them, I would pull them leaving just enough soil on them to keep most of the roots intact and replant in new less wet soil and see if they start to recover. You could always try it with a few of each plant. If the others recover, great, if they are toast maybe you saved a few. I would also consider putting a fan on the ones still in overly wet soil to attempt to dry them out a little more quickly then be very judicious with water. If you get a nice sunny day with a little breeze you could also try putting them outside for a while in the shade and bring them in overnight.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#7

Post: # 68098Unread post JRinPA
Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:29 pm

I took my peppers outside and put them in low tunnel greenhouse/cloche house...pretty much as soon as they got the first true leaves. Back in end of March I think. I don't have the patience to babysit too many inside. I don't know how many leaves they have now. They have only been watered twice since planting around Mar 7, even though these trays got overheated a bit. I put a 100 watt troublelight for warmth out in the greenhouse that I turned on for a few nights a couple weeks ago when it got to 19F, and again last night. Need it tonight again, I think.

After the overheat I had started a couple more trays and now those are starting to throw true leaves. I'll probably kick them outside soon.

I don't think I've ever had 9-10 leaves on a pepper and still be indoors. Seems like it would be tough to keep them happy. I truly think good compost is the key, if not at the start, at least when you pot up and have that many leaves to feed. If the nutrition is tied directly to the water, that is going to be tough to find a balance.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#8

Post: # 68101Unread post Setec Astronomy
Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:03 pm

I didn't realize pepper seedlings had to be treated so much differently than tomatoes, I grew 5 peppers last year that seemed to come out fine, I've got six going this year and 3 or 4 of them that are yellowing. I have a heat mat going for some other seedlings, so I put the peppers on there for a bit to dry them out.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#9

Post: # 68103Unread post Growing Coastal
Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:30 pm

JRinPA wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:29 pm I took my peppers outside and put them in low tunnel greenhouse/cloche house...pretty much as soon as they got the first true leaves. Back in end of March I think. I don't have the patience to babysit too many inside. I don't know how many leaves they have now. They have only been watered twice since planting around Mar 7, even though these trays got overheated a bit. I put a 100 watt troublelight for warmth out in the greenhouse that I turned on for a few nights a couple weeks ago when it got to 19F, and again last night. Need it tonight again, I think.

After the overheat I had started a couple more trays and now those are starting to throw true leaves. I'll probably kick them outside soon.

I don't think I've ever had 9-10 leaves on a pepper and still be indoors. Seems like it would be tough to keep them happy. I truly think good compost is the key, if not at the start, at least when you pot up and have that many leaves to feed. If the nutrition is tied directly to the water, that is going to be tough to find a balance.
A friend and I have both had our pepper seedlings do well indoors under lights in a window. Up here we need to start them early inside to get them to ripen outdoors later on. I've pinched them when they got too tall.
My friend's choice of soil mix is heavier than mine but they both do well.

Here are a couple of pics from 2021, grown indoors being hardened off in the garage and spending days in a covered area outside.
Watered only when dry and a little fish fertilizer I think was all they had.
Image

Image

rossomendblot
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#10

Post: # 68112Unread post rossomendblot
Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:15 am

Setec Astronomy wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:03 pm I didn't realize pepper seedlings had to be treated so much differently than tomatoes, I grew 5 peppers last year that seemed to come out fine, I've got six going this year and 3 or 4 of them that are yellowing. I have a heat mat going for some other seedlings, so I put the peppers on there for a bit to dry them out.
I find that peppers aren't as vigorous as tomatoes and their root system develops more slowly. They suck up less water than tomatoes so the soil stays wet for longer, and they really don't like that. A pepper plant can be quite big but still have a small root ball. The plants I just potted up into 1 L containers were on just filling their 3.5" pots with roots, even though some of them are approaching 1ft tall.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#11

Post: # 68117Unread post Setec Astronomy
Tue Apr 19, 2022 8:46 am

Thanks, I've made a note in my "lessons learned" for next year. In the meantime, as I noted above, I'm carefully drying out all of my peppers and a couple of tomatoes that may be in the same boat, on a heat mat.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#12

Post: # 68249Unread post Setec Astronomy
Fri Apr 22, 2022 6:11 am

I've got a number of tomato plants that are now getting yellow lower branches that are falling off (the yellowed leaves on the peppers fell off too). When I did my "Ami" transplant dip I used distilled water to keep from affecting the Actinovate, but I wet the potting mix with my (softened) tap water, and any other watering I've done has been with tap water. I know the discussion of soft water is kind of like Amazon reviews (half say no problem, half say problem), but I'm doing something wrong, obviously.

The picture is of a couple of the tomato plants that I was trying to dry out with the peppers, but I've got other that are pretty dry doing the same thing.
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#13

Post: # 68263Unread post worth1
Fri Apr 22, 2022 9:14 am

I see some damping off maybe.
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#14

Post: # 68365Unread post MissS
Sat Apr 23, 2022 8:50 pm

@Setec Astronomy Those really don't look too bad. Give them a feeding the next time that they need water. Pinch off the yellowed leaves. Lower leaves often die. What these really need is to start getting some time outdoors for an hour or two. The sooner they get hardened off the better that they will be.
~ Patti ~

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#15

Post: # 68582Unread post Setec Astronomy
Thu Apr 28, 2022 9:00 am

Well, my next pepper problem is, because my plants were kind of sickly, I didn't top them like I had planned, partly because it didn't seem right to be cutting off the upper leaves when the lower leaves were yellowing and falling off...and now some of them are already flowering. Suggestions?

PS I have a number of tomato seedlings that are flowering also, I take this as a sign I'm getting better at growing seedlings. I'm really only a few days away from when I would normally plant out, but since I got hit with a May 7 frost 2 years ago, I'm probably going to play it a little safer.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#16

Post: # 68586Unread post Labradors
Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:16 am

Rossomendblot, what you say is really interesting. I keep having yellow/dying peppers and I always thought it was because they were smaller plants than the tomatoes, yet I gave everyone the same amount of water. Now I know to give the peppers less water - period!

Thanks,
Linda

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#17

Post: # 68597Unread post rossomendblot
Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:50 pm

Labradors wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:16 am Rossomendblot, what you say is really interesting. I keep having yellow/dying peppers and I always thought it was because they were smaller plants than the tomatoes, yet I gave everyone the same amount of water. Now I know to give the peppers less water - period!

Thanks,
Linda
I have killed many peppers with overwatering. My seedlings last year were awful so I was determined not to have the same happen this year. I always had serious seedling envy looking at photos and videos of other people's pepper plants, now mine have deep green and glossy leaves like theirs! Who knew all it would take is giving them less attention :lol:

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#18

Post: # 68598Unread post rossomendblot
Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:56 pm

Setec Astronomy wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 9:00 am Well, my next pepper problem is, because my plants were kind of sickly, I didn't top them like I had planned, partly because it didn't seem right to be cutting off the upper leaves when the lower leaves were yellowing and falling off...and now some of them are already flowering. Suggestions
Right now I am cutting flowers off, but I am still a month or more away from planting out.

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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#19

Post: # 68605Unread post worth1
Thu Apr 28, 2022 6:02 pm

Free range peppers.
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Re: Why Are My Seedlings Turning Yellow?

#20

Post: # 68610Unread post pepperhead212
Thu Apr 28, 2022 6:42 pm

I have also found peppers to be slower to develop than tomatoes, but once they do, they take off! This is probably why towards the end, if they have to be put out late, due to cold weather, they start flowering - those are usually rootbound. As for the yellowing, I haven't had that, fortunately, but it could be overwatering. And something that I do, to prevent this is add more perlite to my starting mix; I've used various types of mix, as well as mixing my own, and I add more, then pack some partway in a test pot, and pour a lot of water in it - this way, I can see how easily it drains out. Regular mix stays wet and drains too slowly, in my experience.

That softened water might be a problem, since you are basically adding salt. Hard water is not a problem for plants, so if you have a source, use that for them, just to see.
Woodbury, NJ zone 7a/7b

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