Help Yellow Leaf Garden Beans – What causes yellow leaves on beans?
Bean plants are the precursors of the summer season. They provide one of the first vegetable crops and can provide pods for much of the summer. If your shrub or bean stem has yellow leaves, the problem is more likely to be in your soil. Diseases that lodge in the soil during the winter usually cause garden beans to have yellow leaves. If you are wondering «why are my beans yellow», try a resistant seed variety or practice crop rotation and careful cultivation.
Why are my bean leaves turning yellow?
There is a wide variety of beans for the hobby gardener. Any type of bean can have yellow leaves, including the following:
- Bush beans produce the classic long green beans that are good for canning, freezing or eating fresh.
- Green beans grow in trellises and produce hanging green pods.
- Sweet peas are smaller and have been designed without the «strings» to make them less fibrous.
Then why do you have garden beans with yellow leaves? The answer to this question must begin with an examination of the planting site. The soil should be well drained, in full sunlight, and ploughed with plenty of fertilizer. Alkaline soil can cause ferrous chlorosis. If you pour vinegar into the soil, it will bubble, giving you an indication of its alkalinity. However, adding chelated iron or a soil acidifier helps if plants develop yellow leaves from alkaline soil.
Beans have shallow roots, so be careful when hoeing to avoid damaging the roots. Remove all old plant debris from the area as it may harbour disease-causing organisms. To prevent the soil from transmitting diseases to the beans, practice an annual crop rotation.
If you still have yellow leaves on the beans, the cause is probably a disease. Yellow leaves on bean plants in the garden can have several causes, although the most common are usually due to a virus or mosaic pest.
Yellow leaves in beans and bacteria
When bacteria are responsible for the yellowing of bean leaves, the first sign of a problem is the presence of water spots or dry, brown leaf edges. The leaf is then completely covered and the foliage dies and falls off. The loss of foliage reduces the plant’s ability to capture solar energy and minimizes the health of the beans.
The yellow leaves of bean plants may be caused by the pest. Halo blight is a disease that causes yellow round spots that slowly mix together to turn the entire leaf yellow. The bacteria that cause this disease live in the soil or are found in infected seed. Choose a seed that is resistant to halo blight and rotate your bean crop.
Viruses and yellow leaves in beans
Yellow beans can also be the result of a viral infection. The mosaic virus can affect many different types of vegetables, and there are several bean mosaic viruses that occur in different parts of the country.
The first symptoms are multicoloured spots on the leaves, which give way to a completely yellow or brown leaf. If shrubs or polar beans have yellow leaves, the problem may be due to a virus. Unfortunately, there is no cure.
Virus problems can develop from low nutrient levels or even from an injury caused by a herbicide, but they most likely come from infected bean seeds. Do not save seed from one year to the next as it may harbour the virus. Some viruses are also transmitted by sucking insects, such as aphids. Practice good pest control and use mosaic-resistant bean seed to reduce the risk of yellowing bean leaves.
