What to do when your maize leaves turn yellow
Kelvin Wairimu 
Maize in a flooded farm
Have you seen your maize leaves turn yellow? Are you worried they might not yield? Well, here is what you need to do.
Yellow leaf discolouration is a sign of nitrogen deficiency. To correct it, farmers need to; do thorough weeding to reduce nutrient competition, Top-dress with NPK 23.23.0 followed by spraying nitrogen-based foliar fertilizers.
But I know you are wondering what might have caused nitrogen deficiency in your farm and you planted with manure and fertilizer.
Well, here is the cause. In the last months, Kenya has experienced a heavy downfall. This caused flash floods that eroded the soil leaching all nutrients. Nitrogen is the fastest-leached soil macronutrient.
Another cause of nitrogen depletion is high uptake by both crops and weeds. This explains why maize in highly dense weeds is light green or yellow. Maintaining clean fields lowers competition making nitrogen available to main crop-maize.
Read:4 Best herbicides for maize farming in Kenya and how to use
Topdressing with Diammonium phosphate DAP or NPK 23.23.0 should be done at 10 days after sowing.
This enables faster absorption than applying during planting where most of it is leached.
Applying nitrogen-based foliar fertilizers at an early stage in good concentration avails nitrogen to the plants through the leaves.
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Germination starts at 7 days. How will you know they are yellowing in just three days? Dap and npk are planting fertilizer not top dressing.
Germination does not start at 7 days. In actual fact from third day germination begins and by 7-10days they have 4-6 leaves. DAP and NPK has being widely marketed as planting fertilizer but does the maize use it. No. During germination the food stored in the seed endosperm is used. That why fertilizer is not a necessity for germination. For germination to occur you only need moisture, air (oxygen) and warmth.