Hi, For a long time I assumed I had fertilizer damage of some sort but now I see the same issue on a new plant that's never been fertilized. Is this some sort of disease or pest? I'd appreciate any help in identifying the cause and potential solution to these brown lines on several of my plants.

It looks like mechanical damage, not disease or pests. (Unless your pest's name is "Here Kitty Kitty")

DaisyI said:

It looks like mechanical damage, not disease or pests. (Unless your pest's name is "Here Kitty Kitty")

It does but I promise you no one or thing touches these. It just appears in new spots or on new leaves. Not every leaf and seems to appear as lines vs. splotches. Super weird. I couldn't find anything on the web that looked like it.

Looks a bit like scorch marks, are they getting any direct sun?

The damage may be due to dry air/lack of sufficient humidity.

Calif_Sue said:Looks a bit like scorch marks, are they getting any direct sun?

it does look like that... i have so led grow bulbs that are pretty far away... i wonder maybe if that's it... going to shut them off and see what happens

Hi & welcome! Are you able to add a pic showing the whole plants and their relationship to the light?

purpleinopp said:Hi & welcome! Are you able to add a pic showing the whole plants and their relationship to the light?

First, this seems like a bit of a long shot but honestly it's my current best guess. The plants appear to be effected differently... some have significant damage and others none and others minor. the damage, as you can see in the previous pictures is in a definite pattern and that pattern almost appears to span plants in some ways so it really makes me think I might be on to something with these bulbs and sensitive plants.

attaching some pics for ref.

WOW!! What a great place for plants! I don't see anything that makes me think sunburn but it does look like sunburn, and any plant can burn if the exposure is suddenly increased significantly. Sometimes turning a plant in a different direction, or from one location to another can result in some burning, but incidents of sunburn inside are rare.

I'm not sure supplemental light is necessary for plants in this room, and I'm not familiar enough with grow bulbs to give you much feedback about how close any type of plant needs to get to one to be burned. That would probably depend on the previous exposure vs. the change when the light was applied.

My only suggestion might be to get some tables so plants are more @ eye level, but that's a personal preference, not a plant health issue.

For the dracaena only, I must say I made creases on mine when I handled it just a little roughly- the soft just emerging leaves got crosswise creases that grew out as the leaf grew. Really, just slight creasing left a permanent brown mark. But that may only explain the Dracaena.

https://garden.org/thread/view...

OK I think I might have figured this out. The windows in this room or original to the house... over 100 years. I noticed with the sun going through I can see a pattern... I've not seen the exact pattern yet but it almost looks like spots are magnified relative to others and I think that may be what's causing these patterns. So those that suggested sun damage appear to be correct. I hadn't considered this because I never saw a pattern until I really examined it.

Thanks for the help on here

Interesting theory! I have some of that wavy old glass in our windows too. Our house was built in 1900.