It's fairly safe to bet the necrotic leaf tips are a result of over-watering, soil compaction or perhaps a high level of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil.

Does your home have an ionic exchange water softener (uses salt)?

Does the pot have a drain hole?

About how deep is the soil within the pot?

How do you determine when it's time to water the plant?

When you water, do you water in sips, hoping to prevent over-watering, or do you flush the soil well at each watering?

Do you fertilize? How often? with what? When last?

Al

The pot is 10” across x 9” height with about 7.5” soil. The plant itself, from the soil line, is about 27”. i have it in mix of general potting soil, spagnum, fast draining soil, and a fair amount of perlite. it gets watered approx every 2 weeks, depending on the weight of the pot and the ”finger test”. I’d guess, without ever measuring, it gets about 4 cups of water each time. the thing is, none of these things have changed in such a long time, maybe it is mineral buildup. We did have a softner installed about 6 months ago. thanks for your reply!

My questions were, in part, to determine if the cause might be a build-up of dissolved solids in the soil/ soil solution. If you have an operational water softener, and the fact that you're using only small amounts of water each time you water is almost certainly the at the root of the problem. As the levels of salt in the soil increased, the problem became worse and will continue to accelerate if not addressed.

When NaCl (sodium chloride) is used as the exchange medium in water softeners, the sodium and chloride ions replace calcium and magnesium ions, which "softens" the water. Both sodium and chloride are essential to normal plant growth, but only in very minute amounts, so in this case the toxicity is a function of the dosage.

Check your plumbing supply lines and see if there is a cold water valve or a way to tap into the plumbing upstream from the softener and use water from that source. If you know someone who uses a reverse osmosis water filtration system, that would be an ideal water source. Also good are rain water, snow melt, and condensate from air conditioners and dehumidifiers.

The soil needs to be flushed thoroughly with water from a more appropriate source. Pour a volume of room temperature water equal to 10x the volume of the plant's pot slowly through the soil.

The finger test works ok for pots with 5" of soil or less. The problem is, if the top 2 inches of your grow medium feels dry, the bottom 3" could still be 100% saturated. It's much better to use a wooded tell you can make in 5 minutes from a 1/4 or 5/16" wood dowel rod you can buy from any hardware, hobby shop, or home imp store. You can use that to very accurately determine appropriate intervals between waterings. More on that below. You'll also find info re how to water most effectively.

Using a 'tell'

Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant.

Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor.

In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water.

Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'.

One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue.

Any other questions or input, or something I could explain better?

Al

maybe it is mineral buildup. We did have a softner installed about 6 months ago. thanks for your reply!

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you would see a white/yellow//brown crust around the pot where the minerals actually accumulate ... if you dont.. i doubt thats the issue ...

what kind of softener?? .. if its a salt backwash system.. the salt is used to clean the membrane... and is completely flushed away ... else it would kill you with hypertension ... again.. i doubt that is the issue.. if its not that kind of system.. you will have to be a bit more specific ...

if the only problem with my plants was that little tip browning.. i really would be doing a happy dance.. lets try not to go overboard fixing something which might barely be broken ...

it seems you know every trick for determining water needs.. and the only one left would be to mark the calendar..and not water again.. until the plant barely wilts.. and if you find out.. it needs water once a a month [double your 2 weeks].. or every other months.. then you will learn something ...

tree time is counted in decades.. so minor changes like this MIGHT date backs a long time ... but you seem to have ruled that possibility out..

do keep in mind.. with lower winter light levels.. many plants dont need a lot of water in winter ...

do they go outside for summer??

and lastly.. give us a pic or 2 of the whole plant... these dont happen to be the lowest oldest leaves??? .. it is normal and annual.. to lose a few leaves every winter ... and if that is the case.. there is nothing to fix ...

ken

Symptoms can begin to manifest in most houseplants plants when sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) levels reach 50 and 70 ppm respectively. Depending on initial hardness (Ca + Mg content) of input water, ionic exchange softeners normally add 20-40mg of sodium to an 8 oz glass of water (which IS an issue for those with hypertension disorders). Let's use the average of 30mg in 8 oz, which is roughly 120mg/liter/ 120 ppm

or 140% more than enough to cause symptoms.

We've had this discussion re ionic exchange systems before, Ken. They work by exchanging sodium ions for calcium and magnesium ions. The water with sodium ions pass the system to the tap while the Ca and Mg ions tightly adhere to the system's resins made of organic polymers. When all the polymer resins attachment sites are filled by Ca/Mg ions, the system must be eluted (back-flushed) with salt water to recharge it.

Additionally, sodium competes with potassium, calcium, magnesium and ammonium for uptake by the plant. Chloride can compete with nitrate, phosphate and sulfate uptake. So, when nutrient levels are low with Na and Cl available for uptake, the plant is unable to differentiate between needed nutrients and the Na/Cl waste ions and will overload with Na and Cl.

Al

Thank you to everyone for the enlightening responses! At the time my softener was installed, we had an RO system placed as well, although I don’t water my plants with it because I have far too many and RO is so wasteful . It’s restricted to people and pets only in my house. However, I am willing to water this plant with it for a while to see if it makes any difference. I have very mild white buildup in/on my clay pot, which has been with this plant since I bought it (maybe 2021?). One thing that was mentioned in an above response was the current season. Could humidity be an issue? I burn in a woodstove 24/7 though my humidity levels maintain about 35-40% this time of year.

When I took this picture, I counted about 14 leaves that are currently affected, most of which are mature. I also noticed a few of the compound groupings are like tissue paper (established leaves), unlike the rest. Not sure if that has any significance. I don’t typically concern myself over new or minor plant issues, however, not long after purchasing this plant it took a severe dive downhill with a bacterial infection which took me months to correct and I am apprehensive about that happening again so I tend to watch over this tree more so than my others. I’ve included a another picture, though it’s an overcast day here in South Central PA, it may be difficult to see the discolored and browning leaf tips.

I’ll definately flush the next watering and add in some nutrients. I currently have Jacks brand but admittedly haven’t gotten it out in a while. Used coffee grounds were my most recent go-to out of laziness. I also have some bananas that I’ll make tea with their peels. Thank you for opening my eyes and helping out!

I should mention there's a Law that covers nutrition and cultural conditions, which tells us there are 6 factors that affect plant growth and yield; they are: air, water, light, temperature, soil/media, nutrients. Liebig's Law of Limiting Factors states the most deficient factor is what limits plant growth/health, and increasing the supply of non-limiting factors will not increase plant growth. Only by increasing most deficient factor will the plant growth increase. There is also an optimum combination of the factors and increasing them, individually or in various combinations, can lead to toxicity for the plant.

This means even if we set aside the allelopathic and toxicity issues of coffee/ tea grindings (see below), both the tea and the banana tea is much more apt to have a negative effect than positive. The fertilizer I suggested is an ideal ratio for almost all houseplants, is a complete nutritional supplementation program from a single source (package). If you use it, you will not need any teas or tonics, or a little of this or that.

There are serious issues associated with adding used coffee grounds or tea bag contents directly to your container media because they contain a phytotoxic alkaloid (caffeine), which has an allelopathic effect on plants as well as autotoxic (poison to their own seedlings) effects on future generations. Caffeine interferes with root development by impairing protein metabolism. This affects activity of an important bio-compound (PPO) and lignification (the process of becoming woody), crucial steps for root formation.

We also know the tannins in both coffee and tea are also allelopathic (growth inhibitors). There are ongoing experiments to develop herbicides using extracts from both coffee and tea that cause me to want to say they might serve better as a nonselective herbicide than as a tonic.

Best luck!

Al

I am grateful for your knowledge and will heed your warning.