If you were in total control of the nutrients available to your plants, there would be considerable advantage in ensuring nutrients were available in the exact ratio plants use them in, unless you were intentionally trying to manipulate nutrients to achieve targeted growth characteristics. An example of this manipulation might be using a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer like your 24-8-16 early in the year on your tomatoes to promote top growth and get the photosynthesizing machinery in place before cutting back to something like a 2:1:2 or even a 1:1:1 ratio after the plant is well-established. Simply reducing the available N reduces the amount of vegetative growth, but since reducing N does little to slow photosynthesis, the plant still has all that photosynthate that's NOT going into vegetative growth to channel into bloom and fruit production. You don't mention where you live, so it's difficult to know how far along your plants are, but I don't think the 24-8-16 can be too far off the mark when you're using a 'shotgun coverage' approach. It comes the closest to supplying nutrients in the same ratio plants use them of any other common ratios I can think of. Below is a chart of the average of how plants use nutrients. I gave Nitrogen, because it's the largest nutrient component, the value of 100. Other nutrients are listed as a weight percentage of N. To read the P level comparison: For every 100 parts of N a plant uses, it will use from 13-19 parts of P. The average is 16 parts of P for every 100 parts of N, or plants will use about 1/6 as much P as N. The ratio of nutrient usage as a function of where the plant is in its growth cycle changes very little, and various plant parts (leaves, roots, fruits, blooms) will contain roughly the same amounts of the nutrients. N 100 P 13-19 (16) 1/6 K 45-80 (62) 3/5 S 6-9 (8) 1/12 Mg 5-15 (10) 1/10 Ca 5-15 (10) 1/10 Fe 0.7 Mn 0.4 B(oron) 0.2 Zn 0.06 Cu 0.03 Cl 0.03 Mo(lybdenum) 0.003 Al

can I add please ? yellowing plants could also result from lack of potassium intake... I think a lot of folks over-look this. it doesn't necessarily display it's self with browning tips. therefore many people think of nitrogen deficiency. that is not always the case

First thing that I'd look to are iron deficiency and pH. Here's a chart with the basics of systematic leaf conditions. It's not always so cut and dry, but these are the basics... http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/hydro/symptoms.html Since it's the easiest fix, I'd get a water soluble micronutrient product and use that first. A common formula is Iron, Zinc, and Manganese (not to be confused with Magnesium.) If it works, and you're growing in the ground, then check with your local county ext. to see if it's a common deficiency. If it is, then you know the fix. If it isn't then you'll want to discover what could be interfering with nutrient uptake. Common causes are imbalances where a surplus of one nutrient/mineral affects another, and pH issues. Good luck. :-) Oh, it could be herb. drift, but iron deficits aren't uncommon. Edit: Dave posted while I was typing... I basically agree. Especially since micro-nutrient supplementation is so simple, and plants usually respond quite quickly to their application, I'd try that first. If it's herbicide drift, they're damaged beyond repair, and there's no sense worrying about that until you've ruled out the easy fixes.

Unfortunately, I don't have pics. I garden offsite and won't be there for a few days. The pics wouldn't really show much as the plants themselves look fine. They just look like they were transplanted four weeks ago not two months. There are no bug infestation, PM, DM etc. But for an example, in plot 2 the single squash planted way after the other plot is taking off, flowering both male and female, has 4 squash fruits whereas in plot 1, those squashes are about 2-3 feet in length and just one male flower so far off of 4 squashes. Plot 2 doesn't get watered by a sprinkler like plot 1. Both plots are mulched and fed the same food. It's not the weather because the plot 2 squash is doing very well. The only difference is the darn sprinkler.