Nutrient Deficiency Finder
Yellow leaves narrow down to a short list.
Where the symptom shows is worth more than what colour it is. Nutrients the plant can move appear on old leaves first, the ones it cannot appear on new growth. Pick the location and the pattern, and read the short list with the reasoning behind it.
Moves freely inside the plant, so the oldest leaves are stripped first. They pale uniformly from the tip back along the midrib, and the whole plant looks light green and grows slowly.
Moves inside the plant. Older leaves go dull dark green, then purple or red, most often on young plants in cold wet soil. Growth is stunted before any colour shows.
Moves inside the plant. Older leaves scorch along the margins and tips, yellow then brown inward, while the midrib stays green. Stems are weak and lodge.
Moves inside the plant. Older leaves yellow between the veins while the veins themselves stay green, usually starting at the leaf margin and working in.
Barely moves once it is placed, so the youngest leaves pale first and the whole plant can look evenly light green. Easy to read as nitrogen: the location is what separates them.
Does not move once placed. Growing points and the youngest tissue distort, hook or die back, and fruit disorders such as blossom end rot belong here.
Does not move. The youngest leaves yellow sharply between the veins while the veins stay a clear green. Common on high pH or waterlogged soil even when the soil holds plenty of iron.
Does not move. Yellowing between the veins on younger leaves, softer edged than iron, often with grey or brown flecks along the affected tissue.
Does not move. Internodes shorten and leaves at the top stay small, with pale bands either side of the midrib.
Does not move. Growing points die back, stems crack or go hollow, and leaves thicken and distort.
Plenty of things look like a nutrient shortage. Dry or waterlogged soil, root damage, herbicide carryover and disease all produce leaves like these. This narrows the shortlist. A tissue test read against a recent soil test settles which one it is, and your agronomist will want both before anything is applied.
A shortage is rarely spread evenly. Where in the field it bites, and how hard, is what decides whether a blanket rate or a variable one pays.
Look at the field, not just the leafFrequently asked questions
Why does where the symptom appears matter more than what colour it is?
Because it separates the candidates before colour does. Nutrients the plant can move inside itself, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium, are withdrawn from old tissue to feed new growth, so a shortage shows on the older leaves first.
Nutrients it cannot move, such as iron, manganese, zinc, boron, calcium and sulphur, stay where they were placed, so a shortage shows on the newest growth. Yellowing at the top and yellowing at the bottom point at two different lists.
Why a shortlist instead of one answer?
Because the leaf does not carry enough information for one answer. Several nutrients produce similar patterns, and the reliable discrimination comes from a test, not a photograph.
The tool ranks the candidates and shows the reasoning for each, so you know what to look at next rather than what to buy.
What else looks like a nutrient shortage?
Dry or waterlogged soil, root damage from compaction or pests, herbicide carryover, and several diseases all produce leaves that read as a deficiency.
Soil pH is the common hidden cause: iron and manganese can be abundant in the soil and still unavailable to the crop on high pH ground, in which case applying more of them changes nothing.
Do I still need a tissue test?
Yes. A tissue test read against a recent soil test is what settles which nutrient it is, and your agronomist will want both before anything is applied.
This tool narrows what to test for and where to sample, which is where it saves time.
What if the symptoms match more than one nutrient?
Then take the top two into the field. Check where on the plant each one shows and whether the pattern is on the margins or between the veins, because that is usually what separates them.
If it is still a tie, test. One tissue sample from affected leaves and one from healthy ones, sent together, is cheaper than applying the wrong product.
Bigger picture? GeoPard turns the data into prescriptions.
This page reads one file at a time. The full GeoPard platform combines multi-year yield, NDVI, soil, and topography into management zones, generates variable rate prescriptions, and pushes them to your machine.
Already harvested? See whether the variable rate paid off in the Automated Yield Report.
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