Sulfur Deficiency in Plants

A sulfur deficient plant will experience yellowing or pale green coloring throughout the plant. Younger leaves suffer from chlorosis with their tips becoming necrotic. Overall plant development and growth will be stunted without enough sulfur in the soil.

Sulfur deficiency results in a uniform pale green chlorosis throughout the plant. Veins do not retain a green colour, and in many cases, they may be even paler than the interveinal tissue. In cultivars in which young leaves are normally green lacking red pigmentation, the youngest leaves may appear pale earlier or more severely than mature leaves. This is not obvious in cultivars with red or purple tips.

A considerable reduction in growth may be suffered without the appearance of any visible symptoms. Clear symptoms are associated with severe stunting, accompanied by reduced leaf size, and reduced activity of axillary buds, resulting in less branching.

Purple or red-brown pigmentation may develop on both young and old leaves. In cultivars with normally green shoot tips, the petiole and margins of young leaves may become red, and this may extend in a mottled pattern over interveinal areas of the upper leaf surface. A similar pattern is seen on the oldest leaves, although it is often confined to the tips of lobes rather than extending around the entire margin.

Leaves of intermediate age generally lack purple pigmentation. In plants which normally have purple-pigmented shoot tips, pigment is lost in the normal manner as leaves mature.