Along with nitrogen , potassium , phosphorus , calcium , and magnesium , sulfur rounds out the six macronutrients that plants need in sufficient amounts to maintain good health and achieve high yields .”
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Along with nitrogen , potassium , phosphorus , calcium , and magnesium , sulfur rounds out the six macronutrients that plants need in sufficient amounts to maintain good health and achieve high yields .”
Other signs that point to a sulfur deficiency include slow growth and delayed maturity of leaves . Sulfur-deficient plants may appear spindly and have thinning stems . These symptoms could be concurrent with the yellowing leaves or appear separately , depending on the plant species .
How Sulfur Deficiencies Occur
Across North America , the amount of available sulfur in cropland and the environment is generally declining . Some of this is by design and some is unintended . For example , the Clean Air Act and comparable policies reduced the amount of sulfur that fell back to earth as sulfur dioxide by reducing factory and power plant emissions . Some modern agricultural practices , such as the reduced use of pesticides in crop reduction , has contributed to the higher incidence of sulfur deficiencies . Many pesticides , especially fungicides , contained sulfur . The higher level of refinement , which removes sulfur , in modern fertilizers has also potentially reduced the amount of available sulfur .
Other hypothesized contributors to the declining amount of sulfur in soils include intensive agricultural practices . Lands that are intensively cropped or that are not allowed to be fallow have lower levels of sulfur as a rule . Also , higher-yielding crop varieties , whether created by genetic modification or hybridization , pull more sulfur out of the soil than heirloom and open-pollinated crops . Higher yields tend to create more crop residue , which is low in sulfur . The burning of crop residue or burning the vegetation on an area that is to be converted to crop production will likely cause a sulfur deficiency . Sulfur in the soil is released into the atmosphere as a gas when burned . The advent of no-till crops and earlier plantings also contribute to this deficiency . Soils that are over-fertilized with phosphorus tend to be deficient in sulfur as well , since abundant phosphorus can displace the sulfur . In general , soils that are too acidic , too sandy , and too silty , or have low levels of organic matter , tend to be deficient in sulfur too , as are soils at higher elevations .
Sulfur deficiency is often indicated by chlorotic growth in new leaves .
90 grow cycle