Plants need to be able to deploy nutrients throughout their system - from the roots tips to the very outer growth points of the plant. But, there are some nutrients that plants may struggle to deploy to where they need to go. This is often referred to as the "mobility" of nutrients. Some nutrients are said to be less mobile than others.

Your macro-nutrients – Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium all have good mobility. Magnesium & Chlorine also have good mobility in plants. But most of the Micro-nutrients unfortunately have poor mobility in plants. Of these, Calcium and Boron have bad mobility in capsicum.

The diagram below illustrates how deficiency symptoms for mobile nutrients generally affect the old growth (older leaves) of capsicum and less mobile nutrient deficiencies generally manifest in the new growth (younger leaves) of capsicum plants.

The most important thing to be cognitive of is the mobility of nutrients and the areas of the plant most affected by their deficiencies. This will be key later on in determining what nutrients your plant is displaying deficiency symptoms of. Deficiency symptoms displayed in the new growth or old growth of your plants is a critical factor in determining the nutrient deficiency at hand.

For instance, your plant has yellow leaves at the base of the plant, in the old growth. Both Sulphur and Nitrogen show symptoms of yellow leaves. However, we can determine that the deficiency at hand is Nitrogen as Sulphur deficiency symptoms manifest in the new growth of plants.