Have you thoroughly checked for pests? Spider mites love young tender growth.

Dave,
No signs of any pests that I could see! And I'm pretty good at spotting them by now lol

I have a peperomia whose new leaves were looking just like this and I looked at it closely with a jewelers loop and saw little narrow white bugs which I think may be thrips, am treating it now. Some insects are very difficult to see with the naked eye and some kind of magnifying glass can be very helpful. Jewelers loops are very cheap and available on Amazon.

Andrea,

Like I said, I didn't see any bugs. I'm only 22 so my eyes are pretty sharp and I know what thrip/spider mites/whitefly/mealies/scale etc. look like, so unless it's microscopic I don't think anyone's been chewing on these leaves. There's also no signs of damage other than the reduced size. I will bring in a handlens and take a look through that though to confirm, but I'm fairly certain this isn't pest-related.

My current theory is they got hit with way too much sun at some point and responded by reducing leaf surface to protect themselves from burning, but they aren't in direct light right now so I thought the problem would correct itself after chopping off the stunted growth they came in with. Does anyone know of this response in rubber plants? Is there any other reason the small leaves would occur other than bugs?

Thanks!

I believe you, I just thought that I saw some distortion on the emerging leaves in the second photo that looked like it could be the result of a sucking insect but maybe my old eyes were deceiving me lol. This could also be caused by some nutrient or mineral deficiency as well, not sure what though. Btw I have a little rubber plant that has all small leaves, they look perfectly healthy but they're all about a third of the normal size. I've been meaning to post a photo on a separate post so I'll be interested to hear other's theories on this.

how old is this growth? are you giving it enough time to grow out?

Andrea,

Cool, just wanted to make sure it was clear that I know what to look for. It can be super hard to tell if there's bugs or not from a photo so I understand everyone double checking on that :) hope I didn't come across as rude or calling anyone old lol that wasn't the tone I was going for.

Sans,

These are newly unfurled leaves, but I've never seen a leaf unfurl on a rubber plant that wasn't already full size, or at least full height. I don't think the new leaves are going to grow bigger than this but I'll keep an eye on them!

Thanks all :)

Also Andrea I'd be interested to see your photos of your rubber plant if you'd like to post them here too!

Here's some more pictures of the same batch of rubber plants. The tiny new leaves don't appear to be growing any larger after unfurling.

I checked with a handlens (10x magnification) and didn't see any creepy crawlies. Still open to ideas! Thanks :)

Imo they look fine. I don't have elastica but I do have alii, benjamina and salicifolia/nerifolia, all of which the leaves don't quit growing until they look more hardened off.

In your second picture you can tell the next leaf will be bigger than the first.

Do you fertilize while the plants are in your greenhouse? Now would be the time for sure :)

Erin,
yes we try to fertilize every month (that's probably not often enough but when you've got hundreds and hundreds of plants...) Do you think there's some nutrient deficiency?
thanks!

Oh no, to me those plants look fine or rather not lacking. I just say that because that new growth will use it if you do. Maybe those leaves will be bigger then if you didn't fertilize.

With the red color to them still, I don't think they're done growing.

If they were in my care I would probably do a half to full strength dose of good liquid fertilizer.

Sorry, it's been a while since I've been on the forum, but here are a couple of pics of my ficus elastica with small leaves

this plant came in with a shipment of typical rubber plants to the greenhouse I used to work in about a year ago. I pulled it out because it looked so different and it has grown fine and been in both bright, indirect light, most of the last year, and 8 hours of direct sun for the last 2 months. It doesn't show any signs of changing its leaf size at all, I was even wondering if it was maybe a different species or subspecies....

In my pot of three rubber plants, one is broken (I bought it like that) and the new branch growing at that point has smaller leaves. Each new leaf is bigger than the last but still nowhere near the size of the ones on the rest of the plant. I assumed this was normal and that eventually it would produce full sized leaves on that branch. But after reading these posts I'm now thinking maybe it's not?

Thanks britters, that makes sense. Even if it doesn't make such a good looking plant! I think the large leaf right by where the new branch is growing is supposed to drop off of its own accord eventually, so then maybe if I/we remove the first couple of tiniest leaves on that new branch the whole thing wouldn't look quite so unbalanced? Hmmm...

it's definitely a possibility that it's a gene mutation with mine since it's never had large leaves at all and I would fully expect your leaves to get larger eventually, for now I'm embracing my little guy's uniqueness

That smaller leaved specimen looks great Andrea! Personally would buy that one over the regular one!

loupe, not loop

Hi OP, i know. Its old post but did you figure out? What was the cause of tiny leaves?

I don't know the reason but my plant ocassionally produces small leaves too. They reach the size of the normal ones after several months. I also noticed the plant sometimes drops the small new leaves, even before they fully open. It seems that this does not perturb the regular growth.

Have the same problem with my ficus elastica. The first leaf is done growing I'd say but last week a new one appeared and it looks like it will remain small too

Andrea - I was just perusing this thread and noticed your post which suggested your plant was cultivar or variant of F elastica. Even though it might have been included with a shipment of F elastica, it's a different species. The rusty looking underside of the leaf gives the tree away as being F rubiginosa, commonly rusty fig or Port Jackson fig.

Shoot! I just noticed how old this thread is. Oh well ........

Al