siege2050

I thought I would share some photos that might help someone else having the same issues. A lot of my bananas have leaf deformity issues when they are planted in my yard. The only cause I can find is that my yard is acidic with a PH of about 5.0. . Wild Blueberries grow quite nicely down the hill from the house, and after experimenting for the last few years I have without doubt at least here narrowed the problem down to calcium Deficiency most likely caused by the low PH. The reason I blame the PH is that my soil is full of calcium containing limestone rocks, but it is not available to the plants because it has been tied up by the acidity. Proof would be that applications of very soluble calcium corrects the issue, and indeed it does. Leaves will start having horizontal lines parallel to the midrib as the first indicator. I see lots of photos on here with slight lines, and it is probably normal to a degree with fluctuations in moisture as calcium depends on water to travel though the leaf tissues, or slight deficiency. But in my case I water daily and it gets worse over time, the next symptom is twisted leaf midribs. They start out slightly twisted and get worse over time, eventually the calcium issue seems to aggravate, or go along with boron deficiency. Then the leaves become heavily twisted, with dead patches, with difficulty emerging from the pstem, leaf area is reduced and emerges shaped like a spear, or twisted spear. Growth eventually stops. The photos below show the early symptoms, the first photo shows the lines, the second shows the twisted midrib tips that happened on the last 4 leaves that emerged, and the third photo shows only 5 days later (Did apply smaller dose about 2 weeks earlier) after applying 1/2 cup of calcium nitrate in the root area of the Banana, that the twisting is completely gone, and the lines are virtually non existent. My soil was formed from hundreds of years of Oak, Hickory, and other acidic leaved plants, and the long term fix for me is I am going to lime my yard this fall, and hopefully that will fix the problem. Just thought this might save someone some trouble, and the calcium application always fixes the problem for me, every time. You can get bags of calcium nitrate at Co ops, etc. If you use it, start with small dosages till you see how the plant is going to react, dont dump a ton on the plant lol

Early stage, horizontal lines parallel to the midrib get more noticeable



Leaf midribs deformed, twisting, usually in the same direction on every leaf.



Don't mind the webworms in the tree behind, we are having a severe outbreak this year due to the 4 feet of rain we got earlier over spring and summer, nothing I can do to get rid of them. Five days after applying 1/2 cup calcium nitrate, leaf twist is completely gone, leaf wider, horizontal lines gone.

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