Why Are Cannabis Leaves Turning Yellow?
While growing cannabis in the garden, there are some problems you are likely to encounter. This article discusses some methods you can use to treat the issue of yellow cannabis leaves.
While growing cannabis in the garden, there are some problems you are likely to encounter. Your plants may not be getting sufficient nutrients and water among other issues. These can interfere with the quality of the final yield or produce. Lack of enough water, sunlight, and minerals can make your plants’ leaves to turn yellow. Additionally, lack of constant watch and monitoring during the growing process can make your plant to wither. No grower likes to bear the sight of a withering plant. Thus, you need to ensure that your plant does not lack some of the necessities such as water and light. Even though the issue of yellow cannabis leaves faces many farmers, finding a permanent solution to prevent it can be difficult.
To treat the problem of yellow leaves, first and foremost, one needs to identify its common causes. This is the starting point for resolving this issue. Secondly, you need to find out what brings about these effects. Thirdly, you can work on improving the situation so that the issue of yellow leaves does not spread to other plants. This will help you minimize the risk of the condition spreading to other plants hence the entire garden. However, there are some means and methods you can embrace to treat the issue of yellow cannabis leaves.
Whether you’re growing in soil, coco coir or in hydroponics, probably the most common reason to see yellowing and other nutrient deficiencies is the pH near the roots is too high or too low. Cannabis plants have a difficult time absorbing nutrients when the pH is off, resulting in nutrient deficiencies even if the nutrients are actually present near the roots.
Symptoms
Yellow or other oddly colored leaves
Spots, stripes or patches
Burning around the edges of leaves
In fact, basically any nutrient deficiency can be triggered by incorrect pH!
You can solve your pH imbalance in various ways. In all cases, you will need a pH testing device, such as a digital pH Pen, pH test strips or pH drops. If you can’t test your pH, you don’t know how to correct it if necessary. If you think there is a pH imbalance, test the water that runs out of your soil or the water in your reservoir (when using a Hydroponics system). You can correct the imbalance by using chemicals that correct your pH up- or downwards. It is a fairly common problem that your imbalance is caused by using too many nutrients. These nutrients cause your soil or water to have too much salt. Fixing a pH imbalance is almost never fixed by adding more nutrients and only cause your problems to become only bigger. Use the pH adjustments after you have added the nutrients so you can make sure that the pH balance is right of your nutrient mix and not just the plain water you’re adding.
Maybe you have been using the same soil for too long and all nutrients have been sucked out of it, maybe you do not give your plants enough nutrients, or it could be due to the other issues we just mentioned.
If there are yellow leaves near the bottom of the plant which are loose and fall off, it could be a nitrogen deficiency.
Symptoms:
The Solution
One easy solution here, besides taking care of the other problems we discussed above, is to provide your pot plants with higher levels of nitrogen.
There are many nutrient mixes out there for pot plants which are specifically intended for this purpose.
If you have had your pot plant in the same soil for more than 2 months, you may want to transplant the plant into new soil that has a fresh load of nutrients ready to go.
We have covered a massive guide on what kind of soil you should be using for the best results; you can check it out by clicking here.
However, it is the under watering of your weed plants that can cause the leaves to turn yellow. Simply put, if you do not provide your cannabis plants with enough water, they will dry up and turn yellow due to not having enough moisture in their system.
Symptoms of Poor Watering Practices
The Solution
As we mentioned above, yes, it is more common to over water than under water cannabis plants, but it does still happen. Now, under watering is not always the cause of yellow leaves, and due to the many other causes of yellow cannabis leaves, it can be hard to identify.
However, if your weed plants perk up immediately after watering, you can be pretty sure that a lack of watering is the problem. This can be a bit of a trial and error process, but the simple solution here is to just provide your weed plants with more water.
Light burn can be really bad for pot plants, especially during the flowering stage, as you will not only burn fan leaves, but flowers or buds as well.
Symptoms
The Solution
Light burn can happen due to a number of reasons. Some plants simply cannot handle the lights being on 24/7 during the veg cycle, so you might want to decrease lighting to 18 hours per day. Weed leaves that work too hard die early, kind of like people.
Depending on the type of grow light you have, the light could just be too close and providing your plant with either way too many lumens or too much heat, and therefore, the solution to this is to move the grow lights further away from the plants, or to get slightly weaker and cooler grow lights.
HPS and LED lights are commonly known for producing light burn.
The best way to fix light burn is to move you grow lights further away, or bend over the affected plants so they’re further from the light.
When in doubt, always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations when it comes to how far away to keep your light from your plants! This is especially important for growers who utilize LEDs.
When it comes to seedlings, which are the really small sprouts that come out of the soil before the vegetative stage begins, a cause of yellowing leaves can be that they are not getting nearly enough light.
If a seedling that has freshly cracked out of its shell is not getting enough light, the leaves actually start off as yellow, and if they continue to not get enough light, they will probably stay yellow and never really turn green.
This can be disastrous, as this early stage is very important indeed.
When a shell first cracks, the round leaves inside are actually yellow. They only turn green once the plant starts getting enough light.
Note: Adult cannabis plants without enough light won’t grow well either, but they likely won’t have yellow leaves. In fact, adult cannabis plants that are getting relatively low levels of light will actually turn dark green since they aren’t using up nutrients for photosynthesis (the extra unused nutrients get stored in the leaves, causing them to appear darker).
The Solution
If your seedling is not getting enough light, chances are that it will also be really thin and stretched vertically.
The simple and quick solution here is to just provide your seedlings with more light and more light intensity.I will recommended Eco Farm Led Grow Lights and HID Grow Lights
Getting rid of bugs or pests is very hard. The best thing you can do is prevent them getting into your grow room. You can do this by not visiting other grower’s gardens and only adopting clones if you 100% trust them. Also, try to prevent going directly to your garden from the outside. At last, if your plants are getting fresh air from outside, protect the vent with a screen that keeps bugs out.
Bugs or pests are easily spotted on your plants. You will notice that your leaves turn yellow and get spotted. These spots are probably the bugs that feast on your plant. Please act quickly after you detected these kinds of leaves or it will damage your complete harvest.
The bottom line is that bugs and pests of all sorts, for various reasons, can cause weed plant leaves to yellow and die. In worst case scenarios, these pests may actually eat large portions of your plants, multiple inside of them, and suck them dry of moisture.
So, of course, you need to prevent pest infestations, and if they occur, you need to take care of them quick.
The Solution
This is a bit of a harder problem to combat, as there are various pests which can cause issues for your cannabis plants, and each pest requires a different approach to get rid of.
Some things like poor or too much watering, a lack of cleanliness, low or high humidity levels, low or high temperatures, and lots of ways for pests to get inside can all lead to pest infestations.
Spider mites and fungus gnats are the two most common pests which cause the yellowing of leaves, so you best find out how to take care of these two critters.
If your plants are regularly in temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius or 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it can cause the leaves to turn pale and yellow, and it can eventually kill the plant.
On the other hand, if the temperature in the grow room is excessively hot, it can cause your plant to burn and dry up, thus making it turn yellow.
If you cannot hold your hands in the grow room, especially right under the lights, without feeling uncomfortable hot, well then it is probably too hot in your grow room.
Anywhere over 28 or 29 degrees Celsius has the potential to cause this problem.
The Solution
The solution here is to ensure that your weed plants always have the proper temperature for sustained growth. For one, you should definitely get an accurate and high quality thermometer, just so you can actually measure the temperature.
You need to ensure that during the night, the temperature does not drop below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and does not exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.
If it is too cold, you can get a heater or more lights, plus more reflective materials help too, and you can turn the ventilation back a notch too. If the grow room is too hot, you can move the lights further away from the plants, get some kind of AC unit, or you can increase ventilation to let more hot air out of the grow room.
On a side note, if you have the containers on a cold floor, it will make the whole pot plant more susceptible to cold shot.
Keep in mind that yellow leaves are normal from time to time. It can happen that your first leaves turn yellow and die because your plant is growing. These first leaves will not get enough light anymore and they will die. Also, when it is harvest time your plant will have yellow leaves. This is very common and nothing to worry about. Also, from time to time you will have a mutation in your plant where some leaves will be completely yellow. This is no problem and your leaves can still be perfectly healthy unless there are one or two yellow leaves.
Hopefully this article helped you in getting your plant healthy again. What is a problem that you have encountered in the past that made your plant look unhealthy? How did you solve it? I would love to hear some experiences of you in the comments below!
While growing cannabis in the garden, there are some problems you are likely to encounter. Your plants may not be getting sufficient nutrients and water among other issues. These can interfere with the quality of the final yield or produce. Lack of enough water, sunlight, and minerals can make your plants’ leaves to turn yellow. Additionally, lack of constant watch and monitoring during the growing process can make your plant to wither. No grower likes to bear the sight of a withering plant. Thus, you need to ensure that your plant does not lack some of the necessities such as water and light. Even though the issue of yellow cannabis leaves faces many farmers, finding a permanent solution to prevent it can be difficult.
To treat the problem of yellow leaves, first and foremost, one needs to identify its common causes. This is the starting point for resolving this issue. Secondly, you need to find out what brings about these effects. Thirdly, you can work on improving the situation so that the issue of yellow leaves does not spread to other plants. This will help you minimize the risk of the condition spreading to other plants hence the entire garden. However, there are some means and methods you can embrace to treat the issue of yellow cannabis leaves.
Causes of Yellow Leaves
#1 Improper pH Level
The pH of the growth medium where your plants are in is very important to nutrient uptake. For hydroponic systems, the perfect pH range is 5.5 – 6.1, so make sure you test your water. Marijuana soil has a perfect pH range of 6.3 – 6.8 to optimize nutrient uptake. If your medium is outside its perfect range, your leaves will turn yellow because some nutrients won’t be able to be taken up by your plant. Check out the image below to see which nutrients are being taken up in which range.Whether you’re growing in soil, coco coir or in hydroponics, probably the most common reason to see yellowing and other nutrient deficiencies is the pH near the roots is too high or too low. Cannabis plants have a difficult time absorbing nutrients when the pH is off, resulting in nutrient deficiencies even if the nutrients are actually present near the roots.
Symptoms
Yellow or other oddly colored leaves
Spots, stripes or patches
Burning around the edges of leaves
In fact, basically any nutrient deficiency can be triggered by incorrect pH!
You can solve your pH imbalance in various ways. In all cases, you will need a pH testing device, such as a digital pH Pen, pH test strips or pH drops. If you can’t test your pH, you don’t know how to correct it if necessary. If you think there is a pH imbalance, test the water that runs out of your soil or the water in your reservoir (when using a Hydroponics system). You can correct the imbalance by using chemicals that correct your pH up- or downwards. It is a fairly common problem that your imbalance is caused by using too many nutrients. These nutrients cause your soil or water to have too much salt. Fixing a pH imbalance is almost never fixed by adding more nutrients and only cause your problems to become only bigger. Use the pH adjustments after you have added the nutrients so you can make sure that the pH balance is right of your nutrient mix and not just the plain water you’re adding.
#2. A Nitrogen Deficiency
Now, a nitrogen deficiency can be result of an improper pH level or due to bad watering habits. As we noted above, both of those issues can cause the roots of the weed plant to be unable to absorb the proper amount of nutrients, and nitrogen is a very important nutrient for weed plants.Maybe you have been using the same soil for too long and all nutrients have been sucked out of it, maybe you do not give your plants enough nutrients, or it could be due to the other issues we just mentioned.
If there are yellow leaves near the bottom of the plant which are loose and fall off, it could be a nitrogen deficiency.
Symptoms:
- Example of a cannabis plant with a Nitrogen deficiency - notice the leaves are pale and bottom leaves are turning yellow and wilting offPlants tend to be lime green or pale all over, even though the leaves appear healthy without stripes or spots
- Yellow leaves tend to appear towards the bottom of the plant
- Yellow leaves feel soft and are easily pulled off (in fact they usually fall on their own). If a leaf feels very stiff or is hard to pull out, that means it is not a Nitrogen deficiency
The Solution
One easy solution here, besides taking care of the other problems we discussed above, is to provide your pot plants with higher levels of nitrogen.
There are many nutrient mixes out there for pot plants which are specifically intended for this purpose.
If you have had your pot plant in the same soil for more than 2 months, you may want to transplant the plant into new soil that has a fresh load of nutrients ready to go.
We have covered a massive guide on what kind of soil you should be using for the best results; you can check it out by clicking here.
#3. Bad Watering Habits
The first reason why your weed plant leaves could be turning yellow is due to bad or improper watering. It is in fact more common to over water cannabis plants than to underwater them, and on a side note, watering at the wrong times can cause issues too.However, it is the under watering of your weed plants that can cause the leaves to turn yellow. Simply put, if you do not provide your cannabis plants with enough water, they will dry up and turn yellow due to not having enough moisture in their system.
Symptoms of Poor Watering Practices
- Water dripping from a faucet animation - the amount of water (and frequency of watering) have a huge impact on your cannabis plants!Droopiness (it’s normal for plants to droop a little before the lights go out, but you know the drooping is a problem if it’s already happening at the beginning of their “day”).
- Odd problems and symptoms from poor water practices including yellowing and sometimes other deficiencies.
- Overwatering – leaves seem “fat” and swollen with water. Often you’ll have a feeling you may be overwatering your plant, especially if it’s a small plant in a large container.
- Underwatering – leaves often seem “papery” and thin because they don’t have any water inside them. Chronic underwatering leads to overall yellowing and deficiencies.
The Solution
As we mentioned above, yes, it is more common to over water than under water cannabis plants, but it does still happen. Now, under watering is not always the cause of yellow leaves, and due to the many other causes of yellow cannabis leaves, it can be hard to identify.
However, if your weed plants perk up immediately after watering, you can be pretty sure that a lack of watering is the problem. This can be a bit of a trial and error process, but the simple solution here is to just provide your weed plants with more water.
#4.Light Burn
The next reason why your pot plants might be turning yellow, especially the leaves, is due to light burn. If your leaves have light burn, you will notice that the leaves closest to the lights are shriveling and turning yellow, and the yellowing leaves won’t pull off the plant easily either.Light burn can be really bad for pot plants, especially during the flowering stage, as you will not only burn fan leaves, but flowers or buds as well.
Symptoms
- Yellowing appears most on the parts of the plant closest to the light.
- Yellow leaves do not pull out easily, even if the whole leaf is dead
- Light burn often takes a few weeks to develop and is most common once the plant is past the 6th week of the flowering stage (when plants aren’t making many new leaves to replace old ones).
The Solution
Light burn can happen due to a number of reasons. Some plants simply cannot handle the lights being on 24/7 during the veg cycle, so you might want to decrease lighting to 18 hours per day. Weed leaves that work too hard die early, kind of like people.
Depending on the type of grow light you have, the light could just be too close and providing your plant with either way too many lumens or too much heat, and therefore, the solution to this is to move the grow lights further away from the plants, or to get slightly weaker and cooler grow lights.
HPS and LED lights are commonly known for producing light burn.
The best way to fix light burn is to move you grow lights further away, or bend over the affected plants so they’re further from the light.
When in doubt, always follow the manufacturer’s recommendations when it comes to how far away to keep your light from your plants! This is especially important for growers who utilize LEDs.
#5. Not Enough Light (for seedlings)
When it comes to seedlings, which are the really small sprouts that come out of the soil before the vegetative stage begins, a cause of yellowing leaves can be that they are not getting nearly enough light.
If a seedling that has freshly cracked out of its shell is not getting enough light, the leaves actually start off as yellow, and if they continue to not get enough light, they will probably stay yellow and never really turn green.
This can be disastrous, as this early stage is very important indeed.
When a shell first cracks, the round leaves inside are actually yellow. They only turn green once the plant starts getting enough light.
Note: Adult cannabis plants without enough light won’t grow well either, but they likely won’t have yellow leaves. In fact, adult cannabis plants that are getting relatively low levels of light will actually turn dark green since they aren’t using up nutrients for photosynthesis (the extra unused nutrients get stored in the leaves, causing them to appear darker).
The Solution
If your seedling is not getting enough light, chances are that it will also be really thin and stretched vertically.
The simple and quick solution here is to just provide your seedlings with more light and more light intensity.I will recommended Eco Farm Led Grow Lights and HID Grow Lights
#6.Bugs or Pests
Getting rid of bugs or pests is very hard. The best thing you can do is prevent them getting into your grow room. You can do this by not visiting other grower’s gardens and only adopting clones if you 100% trust them. Also, try to prevent going directly to your garden from the outside. At last, if your plants are getting fresh air from outside, protect the vent with a screen that keeps bugs out.
Bugs or pests are easily spotted on your plants. You will notice that your leaves turn yellow and get spotted. These spots are probably the bugs that feast on your plant. Please act quickly after you detected these kinds of leaves or it will damage your complete harvest.
#7.Bud Rot
Another problem which may cause the leaves of your pot plant to turn yellow is an insect infestation, or sometimes a spider mite infestation, which are actually spiders not insects.The bottom line is that bugs and pests of all sorts, for various reasons, can cause weed plant leaves to yellow and die. In worst case scenarios, these pests may actually eat large portions of your plants, multiple inside of them, and suck them dry of moisture.
So, of course, you need to prevent pest infestations, and if they occur, you need to take care of them quick.
The Solution
This is a bit of a harder problem to combat, as there are various pests which can cause issues for your cannabis plants, and each pest requires a different approach to get rid of.
Some things like poor or too much watering, a lack of cleanliness, low or high humidity levels, low or high temperatures, and lots of ways for pests to get inside can all lead to pest infestations.
Spider mites and fungus gnats are the two most common pests which cause the yellowing of leaves, so you best find out how to take care of these two critters.
#8. Heat Stress or Cold Shock
Yet another cause of cannabis leaves turning yellow is due to heat stress or cold shock. Now, cold shock is less common, it can occur.If your plants are regularly in temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius or 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it can cause the leaves to turn pale and yellow, and it can eventually kill the plant.
On the other hand, if the temperature in the grow room is excessively hot, it can cause your plant to burn and dry up, thus making it turn yellow.
If you cannot hold your hands in the grow room, especially right under the lights, without feeling uncomfortable hot, well then it is probably too hot in your grow room.
Anywhere over 28 or 29 degrees Celsius has the potential to cause this problem.
The Solution
The solution here is to ensure that your weed plants always have the proper temperature for sustained growth. For one, you should definitely get an accurate and high quality thermometer, just so you can actually measure the temperature.
You need to ensure that during the night, the temperature does not drop below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and does not exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.
If it is too cold, you can get a heater or more lights, plus more reflective materials help too, and you can turn the ventilation back a notch too. If the grow room is too hot, you can move the lights further away from the plants, get some kind of AC unit, or you can increase ventilation to let more hot air out of the grow room.
On a side note, if you have the containers on a cold floor, it will make the whole pot plant more susceptible to cold shot.
Sometimes yellow leaves are normal!
Keep in mind that yellow leaves are normal from time to time. It can happen that your first leaves turn yellow and die because your plant is growing. These first leaves will not get enough light anymore and they will die. Also, when it is harvest time your plant will have yellow leaves. This is very common and nothing to worry about. Also, from time to time you will have a mutation in your plant where some leaves will be completely yellow. This is no problem and your leaves can still be perfectly healthy unless there are one or two yellow leaves.
Hopefully this article helped you in getting your plant healthy again. What is a problem that you have encountered in the past that made your plant look unhealthy? How did you solve it? I would love to hear some experiences of you in the comments below!
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