Growing pumpkin during the autumn season serves your family during the winter months of October and November with fresh pumpkin. Using your yard to grow pumpkins for self-consumption is an easy, satisfying, and practical idea. However, it’s disheartening to see pumpkin leaves turning yellow. The reason could be less watering, extreme weather conditions, stress, nutrition deficiency, pest infiltration, hazardous environmental conditions, or diseases.
The positive thing is that yellow leaves don’t affect the pumpkin harvest because the problem can be fixed easily, which we will discuss in the article. If you are looking for a solution to yellow pumpkin leaves, read the article to learn the reason and solution.
Why Do Pumpkin Leaves Turn Yellow?
There are many reasons for yellow pumpkin leaves that should be attended to as soon as possible to prevent any damage to the pumpkin harvest. Some of the reasons are as follows:
Stress Due to the Age of the Leaves
The old leaves start turning yellow compared to the fresh leaves, and the primary reason is stress. Another symptom of stress is that leaves turn yellow at the edges and not the interior. All this happens because nutrients start moving from old leaves to new ones due to their mobile feature. But there’s no need to panic because this is an early sign of a problem that can be fixed.
Watering Imbalance (Over Watering/Under Watering)
Watering issues are one of the main reasons for pumpkin leaves turning yellow. Pumpkin plants require lots of moisture during the growing season, so a proper watering schedule is important to maintain moisture. Pumpkin plants need water to move nutrients around, and when they don’t get sufficient water, they display their unhappiness through yellow leaves.
Overwatering can root rot the plant because pumpkins don’t prefer to grow in water-logged soil.
Tips for care: Maintain a proper water schedule for the robust growth of pumpkin plants.
Nutrition Deficiency
Pumpkins are hungry for water and nutrients, such as nitrogen to grow manifold leaves, phosphorus to grow, and potassium to ripen fruits. Each part of the leaf indicates different nutritional requirements; if the entire leaf is yellow, it indicates a lack of nitrogen, and if the margin and veins of the leaves are yellow, it indicates a lack of potassium, iron, and magnesium.
Tips for care: Add nutrients to the soil before the plant shows any sign of deficiency. Add compost to boost soil fertility and water retention, mulch around the plants to thrive, or add balanced fertilizer meant for vegetables.
Location of the Plant
The pumpkin plant requires six hours of sunlight to grow properly and maintain green leaves, so make sure the plant gets enough sunlight. However, make sure you don’t end up exposing the plant too much to sunlight because overexposure may lead to dry, yellow and stressed leaves. It may also cause sunburn to the plant.
Tips for care: Place the plant in a place where it receives sunlight for six hours and then under the shade. Select a suitable spot for the pumpkin plant.
Pest Infiltration
Squash vine borer and bugs suck sap from the pumpkin plant discoloring the leaves to yellow.
Tips for care: To remove vine borers, slit open the stems or remove the affected part of the plant. Squash bugs can be removed simply with water pressure.
Diseases
Fungal and bacterial diseases lead to the discoloration of pumpkin leaves. Fungal disease causes discoloration of leaves and a white coating over the leaves. The bacterial leaf spot and bacterial wilt can’t be cured, so you will have to destroy the plant. The other diseases are Alternaria leaf blight, Alternaria leaf spot, Downy mildew, Angular leaf spot, Yellow mosaic, and Aster yellows, which can be taken care of.
Tips for care: Cut the affected leaves and spray foliar feed to reduce the spread of disease.
Insects
Spider mites and whiteflies are responsible for the yellow color of leaves. Both have different features; spider mites leave yellow leaves and form fine webs on the leaves, whereas whiteflies are found on the underside of the leaf and can be seen only touching the plant.
Tips for care: Insects can be controlled using insecticidal soaps and pesticides. Merely washing the plant with water can control spider mites and whiteflies away.
How Do We Ensure the Robust Growth of Pumpkins?
Merely by following some basic guidelines, you can grow pumpkin in a healthy way. Provide pumpkins the growing condition they love; grow in soil with sufficient nutrition; cover the crop with a blanket or newspaper during the night if the weather is freezing to avoid frost from killing the plant; place the plant under shade or apply a layer of mulch on the soil to protect fruits from heat waves; give at least one inch of water every week to the plant and check for any pest infiltration twice a week.
