unhappy Jackfruit

[dongeorgio]

I purchased a couple of Jackfruit plants from a forum member but during transit, they spent the day either in his car or mine.  They arrived home looking fine but in the following days this happened:














It may be the 12 hours it spent in a closed car or it may be adjusting to my well water.  Truth be told, I have no idea what it is but I just want to correct it.  I feel like Jackfruit Kevorkian. 

[murahilin]

Looks like sunburn. Did it go from shade to full sun?

[dongeorgio]

yes.  Should I put it in the shade?

[thao]

yes.  Should I put it in the shade?

Yes, if it was in the shade before you got it and you exposed it to full sun right away. That's the reason for the sunburned leaves. You have to slowly adjust it to the sun's heat. What I would personally do, keep it in full shade for a week, then next week maybe 2-3x a week, exposed it to the full sun for a little bit at a time. As the weeks progress, expose it to the sun light longer and longer, until it can tolerate full direct sun with out any issues. Or the other option, I see, is to put a shade cloth over it in full sun, then after a few weeks, it should be adjusted to the strong sun light(faster this way).  One last option, I can think of is to leave it out as is, but defoliate all the sunburned leaves and let it re grow. The new leaves should be fine in the full sun, since they grew in that condition already. And almost forgot, you should defoliate all the damage leaves, even in the shade cloth, same with the first mention method as well. Sunburned leaves won't recover, they will just stay as is or fall off eventually and new leaf will take it's place. Good luck and hope to see updated pictures of the newly recovered plant soon.

[dongeorgio]

If I leave it out in the sun, can it do lasting damage or will it just defoliate? 

[KarenRei]

Sunburn is literally just that - sunburn.  You know how humans produce melanin as sunscreen, which is why you tan when you're exposed to the sun a lot, but burn if you're pale skinned and go straight out into the sun for a long time?  Plants produce their own UV blocking "sunscreen"s as well in response to UV damage.  But of course, just like with humans tanning, it doesn't happen instantly, it takes time. 

Burned leaves aren't going to heal.  But it's not like it's a disease that's going to spread.  Just harden it off (progressive adjustment to the sun) and it'll be fine.  If you don't want to be moving your plant, you can use a partial shadecloth to the same effect.

[LEOOEL]

The reasons given seem very reasonable. Could it also be any chlorine... fumes coming from the pool? If possible, I would move them twice as far from the pool as they are now. And, to be completly honest, i would just leave them out in the sun and water them everyday, unless it rains.

[Doglips]

Fumes seems highly doubtful.  If it was airborn you probably would have uniform burn, not just the edges (getting it in the soil would be a different story).  I would think that it would tough for any pool to emit toxic levels of airborne chlorine unless your dumped barrels of the stuff in the pool, it would dissipate quickly.

Tip and edge burn looks a bit like fertilizer burn, or toxic levels of something.

Some of the leaves do look a little sun burned.

You need to look at what has changed, light levels, hot car, water... anything else?  An overnight change implies a drastic change.

Take it slow with whatever you do.