Check these first
- Does it rub off with a finger? Powder that rubs off is a fungus; marks that stay are scarring from pests.
- Is it on the upper or lower leaf surface, or concentrated on new shoots and leaf joints?
- If it is cottony, look inside the fluff for insects.
Most likely causes
From the pests and diseases recorded for this plant, the ones whose symptoms match, most serious first. Symptoms alone rarely confirm a cause, so use the linked page to check the signs and treatment.
Downy Mildew
Pale yellow to yellow-brown angular lesions form on the upper leaf surface with a gray-purple mold in the matching spot underneath. Lesions merge, the leaves die back and the plant declines early.
How to identify and treat: Downy MildewOnion Thrips
Fine white stippled scars run in vertical lines along the leaf surface, and the whole leaf eventually turns whitish. Growth stops and both yield and quality suffer.
How to identify and treat: Onion ThripsLeek Moth
White grazed scars and small holes line the leaf surface, and splitting the leaf reveals larvae inside. Damaged leaves snap easily and die back.
How to identify and treat: Leek MothOther possible causes
The three above are the causes on record for this symptom.
Other symptoms on this plant
What other growers did about it
A page like this one can tell you what leek white powder on leaves is and what to try. What it cannot tell you is what actually happened to someone who had it on the same plant, at the same point in the season, and what they did next.
Gadenin is a free garden journal built around that. You photograph the plant, tag what you are seeing, and the entries line up by date for each plant you grow.
- Tag the problem and the app tells you how many other growers have logged the same thing on the same plant.
- Growers who make their records public can be followed, so you can read what they did and how it turned out.
- Next season your own entries come back at the same point in the year, so you check the plant before it starts.
Free on iPhone. Recording, tagging and reading public records cost nothing.