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Thursday, July 18, 2024 Little Ketchup Grittyville, WA

Entry 128 of 241  
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Two different kinds of sunburn. In the first picture, the edge get dried out, this dessication usually only happens in the young, but not baby, leaves. In the second picture, there is wilting (umassimilated nitrates may be a factor) and the middle part gets heat stressed but it doesnt dry out... The middle is the part of the leaf still facing up into the sun after the edges wilted down. It probably creates a heat trap under the leaf as well as absorbing all the direct infrared heat from the sun. One of the reasons for pinnate or palmate leaves would be to let heat out from under the leaf. Pumpkins probably prefer solid leaves to help suppress vines and grasses that would take advantage of such leaf gaps, it suppresses the competition much better to have wide solid leaves. The desire to suppress the competition outweighs a few burned leaves, also free nitrate is rare in nature, so this type of burn probably doesn't happen as much in wild plants.

Both picture were the same plant, the damage occuring over the same few days. Odd to see both kinds of damage at the same time on the same plant?

Either could look like a disease or nutrient issue. There is an indirect link to nitrate but the sun is the direct cause.
 



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