Seedlings turning purple

[ddrsheden]

This is the 4th year I have started my own tomato plants. But having problems for some reason. The underside of the leaves are turning purple, lower leaves turning yellow with purple veins. The are planted 100% Schultz Premium Potting Soil Plus. The soil was bought over a year ago. I have been feeding plants water from melted snow that I collected this past winter. I have the same problem on my super duper hot peppers. I posted a thread on a hot pepper website and someone posted this link to help diagnose and it looks like nitrogen deficiency. There are pictures of other nutrient deficiencies on it so I thought i would post the link here. Have to scan down to the last half of the page to see the pics.

http://4e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=t&id=289

Or if you have any other ideas...let me know

[elkwc36]

Pictures would help. The purple color can be caused by cool weather. How warm is it where they are? If it is temperature induced I wouldn't worry. My utility room has been a little cool and my have a purple cast to the bottom of the leaves and also on the stems. In my opinion it never hurts them. Great luck with your plants. JD

[KKinAL]

I saw on one of the websites that it's caused by phosphorus deficiency ( mine were doing it also) I fertilized with high phos. fert & most all of the purple went away.

[ddrsheden]

I will try to get some pics of the tomatoes up, as for being cool..the plants have been inside in a south facing window, or in the basement and lighted with two 4' shop lights with full spectrum grow lights, or outside in a hot box made with old storm windows. Plants have not been exposed to any temperatures below 60.
Here is a picture of my Bhut Jolokia peppers and you can see a couple tomato leaves in the picture also.
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...le-pepper2.jpg

[Worth1]

The yellowing bothers me.
I've had purple plants for years but not the yellowing.

Could it be too much water?
Do you let your plants dry out before watering?
If you so desire try a dilute solution of MG on them and see what happens, it cant hurt.

[ddrsheden]

UPDATE: I took a couple plants of each to a nursery and one of the workers thought at least for the tomatoes that it was nigrogen deficiency, which seems to agree with the link posted by Pam. I just bought some ferti-lome Start-N-Grow (18-6-12) which was recomended by the nursery. I gave 1/4 teaspoon to all my tomatoes and to 2 of my Bhut Jolokia peppers. That was five days ago...the plants are looking nice and green again. Guess it was a nitrogen deficiency after all.

[gardengalrn]

I would be careful of adding fertilizer at this point if the seedlings are young and especially since you are using a premium potting soil that probably has everything added to it already. My plants have a purple hue to them as well but I've attributed that to them being in my back (porch) room where we enter/exit the house from...bringing in drafts and that room is generally a tad cooler than the rest of the house. Certainly not below 60 degrees, though. Tomatoes like it pretty darn warm and in my experience will protest if those conditions aren't met. I would just hate for you to burn your plants with too much feed at this point. Who knows, though, you may be doing exactly what is needed.

[Tomatovator]

My plants grew too fast last year so I intentionally have been keeping them cool in the garage under lights 16 hours a day. They are purple too but they are growing slowly and look pretty stocky. I think that as it warms up over the next few weeks they will begin to grow faster. I expect the purple to go away as well. Today it was 38 degrees outside when I woke up and it probably has dropped to the mid to low 50's in the garage since the plants have been out there and thay still look OK. I read somewhere that growing them cool produced stronger stockier plants. Time will tell.

[ddrsheden]

Since I have never had that problem before, I'm thinking that the Schultz Premium Plus potting soil, since it was 2 years old, the fertilizer broke down over time and lost the nitrogen. Is that possible??

[ddrsheden]

I'm thinking it wasn't only the purple that worried the people who saw pic of the plants or saw it in person. The leaves were starting to turn yellow also.

[dice]

Since I have never had that problem before, I'm thinking that the Schultz Premium Plus potting soil, since it was 2 years old, the fertilizer broke down over time and lost the nitrogen. Is that possible??

Yes, that is possible (bacteria would use it to digest
higher-carbon materials in the potting mix).