Micronutrients Click Open to view a picture. Close the current picture before viewing another. The following elements are classified as micronutrients because they are required by plants in smaller quantities. With the exception of manganese, toxicities are very difficult to diagnose visually. Deficiency symptoms tend to be characteristic of the lack of a particular element.
Initial symptoms are a loss of green color in the very young leaves.
While the interveinal tissue becomes pale green, yellow, or even white, the veins remain dark green. New leaves may unfold completely devoid of color, but the veins usually turn green later. Although rare in the field, an excess of iron usually produces symptoms similar to those of manganese deficiency. Symptoms can often be confused with those of iron and magnesium deficiencies. But unlike magnesium deficiency, manganese deficiency symptoms seldom develop so far as to produce interveinal chlorosis, the chlorosis normally being confined to leaf margins.