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Nutrient Burn
Definition: Nutrient burn is leaf damage caused by feeding cannabis more fertilizer than it can use. Excess salts build up in the leaf tips, which turn yellow, then brown and crispy, often with a slight upward curl. Mild burn affects only the very tips, while severe cases spread inward and can damage entire leaves.
How Nutrient Burn works
Roots take up water and dissolved nutrients together. When the solution is too strong, more minerals arrive than the plant can use, and they accumulate at the ends of the leaves where water evaporates.
How it progresses
- Mild: just the tips of a few leaves turn yellow or tan.
- Moderate: brown, crispy tips spread to most leaves, and edges start to yellow.
- Severe: burn moves inward along the edges, leaves curl, and growth slows.
A related sign is very dark green, glossy leaves with tips clawing downward, which points to too much nitrogen specifically.
Common causes
Following a bottle’s full-strength chart from day one, planting seedlings straight into a hot super soil layer, salt buildup from feeding without enough runoff, and treating light-feeding strains like heavy feeders. Many autoflowers and compact indicas need noticeably less than the chart suggests.
Fixing it
- Stop feeding and water with pH-adjusted plain water.
- In soil, water heavily enough to get generous runoff; in coco, drop your feed strength and keep watering to runoff.
- Measure runoff EC and resume feeding at about half strength once it falls toward your input level.
Burnt tips won’t heal, so judge your fix by new growth over the following week. A heavy rinse before harvest, often called flushing, uses the same idea.
Some growers deliberately feed until the faintest tip burn appears in flower, then hold steady, treating it as a sign the plant is at its limit.