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What’s wrong with my plant? Work it out in about a minute.
Most plant problems are diagnosed from three observations: which plant it is, what the damage looks like, and — the one almost everyone skips — whether it started at the bottom of the plant or the top. That last question separates soil-borne disease from sap-sucking pests, and nitrogen shortage from iron shortage.
Plant Disease Identifier AI — Free★ 3.7 · 20 ratings · iPhone & iPad
- Plant × symptom, not a photo match
- Pest, disease and care faults together
- Nothing you enter leaves your browser
Check these two things first
- Push a finger into the soil, two knuckles deep. Wet soil plus a wilting plant means too much water, not too little — and it is the commonest reason a plant is dying. Dry soil plus crisp leaves means the opposite. The leaves look nearly identical either way, so the soil is what tells you.
- Turn a damaged leaf over. Half of all diagnoses live on the underside: fuzz means downy mildew, fine webbing means spider mites, clusters of insects mean aphids. Nothing on the top of a leaf is as informative.
Most garden problems are cosmetic and resolve without treatment. Reach for a spray last, not first.
1.What plant is it?
optionalMany problems are specific to one family, so this removes a large share of the list straight away.
2.What does it look like?
optionalPick everything you can see. Any one match keeps a cause on the list, because you rarely see the whole picture at once.
3.Which part is affected?
optionalIf the roots are involved you will have to unpot or dig to find out — and with a declining plant that is usually the most informative thing you can do.
4.Where did it start?
optionalThe most underused question in plant diagnosis. Trouble that begins at the bottom means something very different from trouble that begins at the top.
- Bacterial WiltAct nowBacterial disease
- Cucumber BeetlesAct nowPest
- Downy MildewAct nowFungal disease
- Fusarium WiltAct nowFungal disease
- Herbicide DamageAct nowGrowing conditions
- Late BlightAct nowFungal disease
- Mosaic VirusAct nowVirus
- OverwateringAct nowGrowing conditions
- Root RotAct nowFungal disease
- Spider MitesAct nowPest
- Squash Vine BorerAct nowPest
- Verticillium WiltAct nowFungal disease
- AnthracnoseTreatableFungal disease
- AphidsTreatablePest
- Bacterial Leaf SpotTreatableBacterial disease
- Black SpotTreatableFungal disease
- Blossom End RotTreatableNutrient problem
- Cabbage Worms & LoopersTreatablePest
- Early BlightTreatableFungal disease
- Flea BeetlesTreatablePest
- Grey Mould (Botrytis)TreatableFungal disease
- Iron ChlorosisTreatableNutrient problem
- Japanese BeetlesTreatablePest
- MealybugsTreatablePest
- Nitrogen DeficiencyTreatableNutrient problem
- RustTreatableFungal disease
- Scale InsectsTreatablePest
- Septoria Leaf SpotTreatableFungal disease
- Slugs & SnailsTreatablePest
- Squash BugsTreatablePest
- ThripsTreatablePest
- Tomato HornwormTreatablePest
- UnderwateringTreatableGrowing conditions
- WhitefliesTreatablePest
- Fungus GnatsMostly cosmeticPest
- Powdery MildewMostly cosmeticFungal disease
- Sooty MouldMostly cosmeticFungal disease
- SunscaldMostly cosmeticGrowing conditions
The questions people ask most
Each of these has several possible causes, and each page separates them.
Browse by plant
Everything that commonly goes wrong with each plant, most serious first.
Bottom-up or top-down? The question that splits the causes
Questions people ask
Why are my plant's leaves turning yellow?
Where the yellowing starts is the key. Oldest, lowest leaves yellowing evenly usually means nitrogen shortage or overwatering. Newest leaves yellowing between green veins means iron shortage. Yellow patches with fuzz on the underside means downy mildew. Yellow with fine stippling and webbing means spider mites.
How do I tell overwatering from underwatering?
Feel the soil rather than the leaves. Both look like wilting. Wet soil with soft limp leaves means overwatering; dry soil with crisp papery leaves means thirst. A thirsty plant recovers within hours of a thorough soak, which also confirms the diagnosis.
Should I spray my plant?
Usually not, and rarely first. Most garden problems are cosmetic, and the commonest causes of a declining plant are watering and light rather than pathogens. Identify the cause before treating, since fungicides do nothing against pests, nutrients or watering faults.
Is there an app that identifies plant diseases from a photo?
Yes — Plant Disease Identifier AI, and this site is its free web companion. A photograph works well for the distinctive fungal patterns and poorly for the large class of problems that are watering, light or nutrient issues, because those look alike on camera. The key here asks about the plant and the pattern, which separates causes a photo cannot.
Is this free, and is my data collected?
The whole site is free with no account and no email, and nothing you select leaves your browser. The app is a free download for photo diagnosis and offline reference.
Why do so many plant problems look the same?
Because a plant has a limited number of ways to show distress. Yellowing, browning, wilting and spotting are the vocabulary, and a dozen unrelated causes share them. What separates the causes is the pattern — which leaves, in what order, from which part of the leaf, and what the soil and roots are doing. That is what the questions here ask about, and it is why a photograph alone so often points at the wrong answer.