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Farkesht diagnostic guide

Why isn’t the plant growing? The ten main causes

A tree that has stopped has ten possible reasons, and from above ground all ten look the same: yellow, short, thin. A grower who reads the canopy and reaches for a fertiliser is guessing. This page gives an order that finds the cheap answers first.

Where do I start?The diagnostic course
Causes this page works through
10causes
pH at which most elements are available
6.5pH
Minimum air-filled porosity a root needs
10%

Updated September 1, 2026Farin Kesht Taban Co.

Chapter one

The right order to check in — by cost, not by likelihood

Any list that orders these causes by "most common" sends you to a leaf analysis in week one and to a spade in week four. This one is ordered the other way round: five of the ten causes are settled in one afternoon with a spade.

  1. 01With a spade, the same day

    1 days

    One inspection hole at the canopy edge, down to rooting depth. Half the causes on this page are confirmed or dismissed right here, at no cost at all.

    • Is the soil at 30 cm mud, or dust?

      If yes: Too little or too much water

    • Does the spade struggle, or is there a hard layer below?

      If yes: Compaction and root suffocation

    • Are the roots dark, soft or sour-smelling?

      If yes: Root and collar rot

    • Are there knots or swellings on the fine roots?

      If yes: Nematodes and root pests

    • Has the union or collar ended up under the soil?

      If yes: Planted wrong: depth and hole

  2. 02Soil and water test

    7 days

    A soil sample from rooting depth and a water sample from the source. You want three things: EC, pH and the major elements. Without that sheet, any feeding programme is a guess.

    • Is soil or water EC above the species threshold?

      If yes: Soil and water salinity

    • Is the soil pH above 7.5?

      If yes: High pH and nutrient lockout

    • Are N, P or K low on the test sheet?

      If yes: Major nutrient deficiency

  3. 03Leaf analysis

    14 days

    The slowest and dearest test, and worth doing only once the two tiers above have not answered. A leaf says what the plant actually took up, not what is present in the soil.

    • Does the leaf analysis show iron, zinc or manganese short?

      If yes: Micronutrient deficiency

    • Has there been shade, hard wind, frost or extreme heat?

      If yes: Light, temperature and environmental stress

Ten checks for ten causes, and that is not a coincidence: every cause in the next chapter is reachable from one of them. The tier a check sits in is how long you wait for its answer.

Chapter two

Ten reasons a plant stops

Each with the symptom that points to it, the check that confirms it and the first action. The two figures at the foot of each card set the order you work in: how fast it shows, and whether the standing plant can still be saved.

  1. 1

    Too little or too much water

    Symptom:
    Midday wilt, or healthy green leaves dropping without yellowing.
    Confirm:
    Two days after irrigating, open the soil down to 60 cm.
    Action:
    Set interval and volume from soil storage, not from the calendar.
    Onsetrecoverable
  2. 2

    Compaction and root suffocation

    Symptom:
    Weak growth year after year with no clear leaf symptom at all.
    Confirm:
    The spade struggles; roots turn sideways at a set depth.
    Action:
    Break the pan, add organic matter, keep machinery off wet soil.
    Onsetprevent, not cure
  3. 3

    Soil and water salinity

    Symptom:
    Scorched leaf margins and a white crust on the soil surface.
    Confirm:
    Measure EC of the soil extract and of the irrigation water.
    Action:
    Leaching irrigation, drainage, and a tolerant rootstock on replant.
    Onsetprevent, not cure
  4. 4

    High pH and nutrient lockout

    Symptom:
    Young leaves chlorotic with green veins, while the soil is full of the element.
    Confirm:
    Soil pH above 7.5 on the test sheet.
    Action:
    Chelates instead of simple salts, local acidification, organic matter in the root zone.
    Onsetrecoverable
  5. 5

    Major nutrient deficiency

    Symptom:
    Even yellowing from the oldest leaves, short shoots, small leaves.
    Confirm:
    N, P or K low on the soil test sheet.
    Action:
    A feeding programme built on that sheet, split across the season.
    Onsetrecoverable
  6. 6

    Micronutrient deficiency

    Symptom:
    Small young leaves, interveinal chlorosis, rosetting and little-leaf.
    Confirm:
    Leaf analysis taken at the standard sampling date.
    Action:
    Foliar for a fast answer, soil correction for a lasting one.
    Onsetrecoverable
  7. 7

    Root and collar rot

    Symptom:
    One tree collapsing among healthy ones, usually after a wet spell.
    Confirm:
    Open the roots and collar: darkening, softness, a fermented smell.
    Action:
    Fix the drainage and get the collar out of water; chemistry alone will not do it.
    Onsetprevent, not cure
  8. 8

    Nematodes and root pests

    Symptom:
    A patch of weak trees in one area, with no particular leaf pattern.
    Confirm:
    Wash the fine roots and look for galls; send a sample to a laboratory.
    Action:
    Rotation, tolerant rootstocks, residue management; on standing trees, control not cure.
    Onsetprevent, not cure
  9. 9

    Planted wrong: depth and hole

    Symptom:
    A tree that never got going from its first year, with no sign of disease.
    Confirm:
    Scrape the soil off the collar: where is the union? Did the roots leave the hole?
    Action:
    Uncover the collar; in bad cases, replant during dormancy.
    Onsetprevent, not cure
  10. 10

    Light, temperature and environmental stress

    Symptom:
    Growth stopping alongside a specific event: a heatwave, a late frost, wind.
    Confirm:
    Match the date it stopped against weather records and building shade.
    Action:
    Windbreak, temporary shade and a biostimulant to carry the plant through.
    Onsetrecoverable
Speed of onset is your first filter: a plant that has been declining for two years is not short of nitrogen, and one that collapsed in a week did not do it from compaction.

Salinity is the one cause on this list with a formula behind it — measuring, leaching and correcting it are here:The soil salinity dossier

Chapter three

A soil full of iron, growing an iron-deficient tree

This is the most expensive nutrition mistake in Iranian orchards: the test sheet says the iron is there, the leaf says it is not, and the grower adds more iron. The element is present. It is not available.

  • Nitrogen: 5.5–8.5
  • Phosphorus: 5–8.5
  • Potassium: 5–9
  • Calcium: 5.5–9
  • Magnesium: 5.5–9
  • Sulphur: 5–9
  • Iron: 4–7
  • Manganese: 4–7.5
  • Zinc: 4.5–7.5
  • Copper: 4.5–7.5
  • Boron: 4.5–8
  • Molybdenum: 6–9
  • available
  • peak availability
  • locked
The standard Truog bands. The solid span is where uptake is best and the pale one the whole range in which uptake is possible at all. The orange line is the pH of an ordinary calcareous plateau soil.

On this soil, these elements are effectively locked

Every kilo of a simple salt of these elements added to a soil like this converts within weeks into a form no root can lift. The answer is not more of it: a chelated form, local acidification of the root zone, and organic matter to hold the element available.

  • Iron
  • Manganese
  • Zinc
  • Copper

What does each deficiency look like on a leaf, and how is it corrected?The deficiency symptom dossier

Chapter four

A seven-day protocol, from looking to acting

Seven jobs, in order, with dates. If you still have no answer on day seven, the problem is not the diagnosis — it is that the sampling was not done properly.

  1. 01

    Record it before you do anything

    Photograph the whole tree, an old leaf and a young leaf, with the date. Mark the affected area on a block map: one tree, one row, or the whole block? That single distinction rules out half the causes.

    day 1

  2. 02

    Dig an inspection hole

    At the canopy edge, down to rooting depth. Look at moisture, firmness, root colour and smell, and the height of the collar. Five of the ten causes are settled right here.

    day 1

  3. 03

    Measure the water

    EC and pH of the irrigation water at the source, not at the end of the line. If you fertigate, take a second sample after injection.

    day 2

  4. 04

    Take a soil sample

    From rooting depth, from several points, combined. Take one from a healthy area as well as the affected one — comparing the two says more than any absolute figure.

    day 2

  5. 05

    Eliminate causes

    With the test sheet and the notes from the hole, shorten the list of ten. Usually two or three remain, and more than one is often true at once.

    day 5

  6. 06

    Act on the cause, not the symptom

    If the problem is drainage, fertiliser does not fix it. If it is lockout, a simple salt does not fix it either. Put the action on what the test showed.

    day 7

  7. 07

    Review a month later

    The same photographs, from the same angle. New shoot growth and the colour of new leaves are the only trustworthy verdict — not a feeling that it looks better.

    day 30

Chapter five

What actually helps, cause by cause

Farkesht products are grouped here by the causes above rather than by shelf. Diagnose first, then choose.

  • Soil conditioners

    Soil conditioners: for compaction, salinity and ground that has lost its structure. Slow to act and slow to fade.

    • Compaction and root suffocation
    • Soil and water salinity

  • Chelated fertilisers

    Chelates: hold the element in a form a root can lift on calcareous ground. The direct answer to pH lockout.

    • High pH and nutrient lockout

  • Organic fertilisers

    Organic and major-element fertilisers: for soil whose reserve genuinely is spent, built on the test sheet.

    • Major nutrient deficiency

  • Micronutrients

    Micronutrients: for deficiencies a leaf analysis has confirmed, foliar or soil-applied.

    • Micronutrient deficiency

  • Biostimulants

    Biostimulants: to carry a plant through heat, cold or transplant stress — not instead of fixing the cause.

    • Light, temperature and environmental stress

And these causes no product fixes

If the problem is drainage, collar rot, nematodes or planting depth, no bottle solves it. A page that sells you one for these has taken your money and lost the tree. The answer to these four is work, not a purchase.

  • Too little or too much water
  • Root and collar rot
  • Nematodes and root pests
  • Planted wrong: depth and hole

Chapter six

The Farkesht growth-problem diagnosis course

What you have read so far is the frame of the diagnosis. The course walks the same route with a camera in the orchard: digging the hole, sampling properly, and reading a laboratory sheet line by line.

  • Orchard growers

    One weak tree among a hundred healthy ones is a local problem; a hundred weak trees is a systemic one. The course teaches the distinction.

  • Greenhouse growers

    In a confined medium, a feeding or salinity error shows itself several times faster. The course covers controlling EC and pH in both solution and substrate.

  • Urban landscape

    City soil is compacted, calcareous and full of rubble. The course covers diagnosis under exactly those conditions, and the limits of what can be corrected in a street.

What the course covers

Every module ends in something you can do, not something you can define. If you finish a module unable to do the thing written beside it, that module has not done its job.

  1. 01

    Reading the plant: leaf, shoot, root

    Symptom patterns on old and young leaves, the current season’s shoot growth, and what the roots show in an inspection hole.

    Shorten the list of ten to two or three causes

  2. 02

    Soil and water tests: sample to interpretation

    Sampling properly by depth and by point, choosing the parameters, and reading the laboratory sheet line by line.

    Read your own test sheet without an intermediary

  3. 03

    pH, lime and nutrient lockout

    Why a present element is unavailable, what a chelate actually does, and how local acidification of the root zone is carried out.

    Tell a real deficiency from a lockout

  4. 04

    Feeding: soil, foliar and fertigation

    Choosing the method by how fast an answer is needed, timing through the season, and avoiding antagonism between elements.

    Write a seasonal feeding programme you can follow

  5. 05

    Root and collar health

    Telling rot from suffocation, the signs of nematodes, and correcting drainage and collar height in an established block.

    Separate a root problem from a nutrition problem

  6. 06

    Writing a correction plan and following it up

    Prioritising the actions, setting a measure of success, and reviewing at the right interval instead of judging too early.

    Write a correction plan with dates and measures

  • Sectioned curriculumEach course is divided into sections and lessons, so you can go straight to the part you need.
  • Pick up where you left offProgress is saved per lesson and the player resumes from the point you stopped.
  • Free preview lessonsSome lessons are open before purchase, so you can judge the depth and the tone first.
  • Permanent accessA course you buy stays open in your account. There is no time limit on watching it.
  • Phone or desktopThe player runs in the browser. Nothing to install.
  • Ask an adviserStuck anywhere along the way, post the question in the forum and get an adviser’s answer.

Courses available now

This list is read straight from the Farkesht library — every course published appears here.

See all courses

Chapter seven

Plans and how to get in

There are two routes to these lessons: buy the single course you need, or take a plan that opens the whole library at once.

  • Buy one course

    You buy a course and it stays open in your account permanently. Right when you know exactly which subject you need.

    See courses and prices

  • Farkesht plan

    Opens every video course, the technical knowledge base and the species files together — and any course published while the plan runs is included too.

    Compare plans

  • Basic

    Register your orchard and keep its record

    150,000 Toman90 days

    Includes

    • Ask questions in the forum
    • Orchard records and care sheets for your species
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    The expert knowledge base, and every species

    350,000 Toman180 days

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    • Care sheets for every species
    • Expert knowledge base
    • Recorded video courses
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  • Complete

    Everything, for a year

    600,000 Toman365 days

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    • Orchard records and care sheets for your species
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    • Private consultation with an agronomist
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Questions

Common questions about stalled growth

The eight asked most often in the forum.

My tree is not growing. Where do I start?

With a spade, not with fertiliser. Dig at the canopy edge down to rooting depth and look at four things: soil moisture, soil firmness, root colour and smell, and whether the collar has ended up buried. Five of the ten causes on this page are settled that day at no cost. Until you have looked at those four, any fertiliser is a guess.

I keep feeding and nothing changes. Why?

Three common possibilities. Either the problem is not nutritional at all and the roots are suffocating or diseased. Or the element is in the soil but locked by high pH, so no amount of the simple form becomes available. Or the application method does not match the speed of answer you need — soil-applied feed arrives too late in an acute stress. The chart in chapter three shows the second case exactly.

How long after correcting before I see a result?

It depends on the cause. A foliar micronutrient shows on new leaves in two to three weeks. Corrected irrigation, one to two months. Corrected soil structure and drainage, a full season and sometimes a year. What matters is judging on new shoot growth, not on the old leaves — a leaf that has yellowed does not turn green again.

Do I really need a soil test?

If the spade answered it, no. If the first tier did not, yes — and without one, a feeding programme is shopping at random. A soil test costs less than one wrong application and stays valid for several years. Ask for at least three parameters: EC, pH and the major elements.

Why is iron chlorosis so common on calcareous soil?

Because above pH 7.5 iron converts into a form a root cannot take up, however much of it is in the soil. The test sheet shows plenty of iron and the leaf shows a deficiency — that is not a contradiction, it is lockout. Simple iron sulphate becomes inert in such a soil within weeks; a chelate stable at high pH works.

Does it matter whether the symptom is on old or new leaves?

It is the main distinction, and it halves the list. Elements that are mobile in the plant — nitrogen, potassium, magnesium — are pulled out of old leaves to feed new growth, so their symptoms start on the oldest leaves. Immobile ones such as iron, zinc and manganese cannot be moved, so the new growth starves while the old leaves stay green. Look first at which end of the plant it started.

Which product should I buy?

Until you have a diagnosis, none of them. Chapter five groups the products by cause rather than by shelf: lockout takes a chelate, degraded soil takes a conditioner, a confirmed deficiency takes a micronutrient. And there are four causes no product solves at all — the page says plainly which.

Can I diagnose this from the page alone?

The framework is here and it is enough to start. What a page cannot give you is practice at sampling and interpretation: where and at what depth to take the soil, when to pick the leaf, and how to read the laboratory sheet line by line. That is exactly what the video course shows, in the orchard.

Take the guesswork out of the diagnosis

Start with the video course — or request a consultation if you want an adviser to look at your own test sheet and photographs.

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