New leaves in center of sunflowers are yellow
Sunflower
Karachi, Pakistan
Sunflower type: Velvet Queen
My Plant Journal: https://www.plantvillage.com/gardens/...
This will be a little long to read so please have patience.
I have been growing these velvet queen sunflowers from seeds but yesterday I noticed that the centers of the plants are are a bit yellow. My guess is either nitrogen deficiency, since I decided to simply use the soil I got from the nursery which is basically manure based compost with sand, or it could be excess watering even though the pot drains out in about a couple of minutes and all you can see is wetness but never any standing water, and I have been watering in the evening when the sun is about to set.
I have reduce the amount of water I give to these starting today but yesterday I also added some dried leaves (browns) making an error in composting basics. Yellowing leaves could be due to lack of nitrogen so for that I should be adding the greens. But before I did tried anything further I wanted to seek guidance here regarding how to handle this situation.
Now on to the types of compost I have. Nurseries here aren't familiar much with the concept of composting so they only sell manure based compost with sand. There are two that I have; Compost 1 (photo attached) is a bag that was manure based compost with lots of tiny white composting bugs luckily swarming overtime, these have eaten through everything whenever I added them to my previous pots with the addition of new browns and greens compostable goods. And recently I added a lot of ground green tea bags into this bag, spices like used cinnamon sticks and old coriander seeds and what not for greens and dried leaves for browns and the bugs seems to be crawling in the bag and composting everything down. Compost 2 (photo attached) was a shot at starting a compost bucket back in March with fruit scraps, shredded cardboard, newspaper and dried leaves with startup compost sprinkle from the Compost 1 (back in those days to introduce the micro-organisms), I never really tumbled it much as recommended but kept adding water whenever it'd dry up. A week ago I actually noticed melon seeds from the fruit discards sprouted in this compost along with sprouts of some other seeds so that actually got me excited that my compost was ready plus the earthy smell that I had only read about in guides until now. There are all sorts of crawling bugs like beetles akin to those I have seen in other people's compost videos and maggots still decomposing the pile in the bucket.
Now on to my question, what steps should I take to help the yellowing leaves on these sunflowers, and if I shall add compost which one should I use?
Another issue that's came up recently is shown in the second photo with highlighted parts; the tips of these leaves are turning brown and crisp. Is this normal?
Both sunflower plants yellow in the center
Compost 2: 6 months old, black and earthy smelling prepared compost from fruit scraps, shredded cardboard, newspaper and dried leaves.
Tips of leaves drying
Update 10-8-15: Yellow centers started blending in with green. Compost added today.
Compost 1: manure extended with tea powder and spices.
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