Green Bean Problems

greyfurball

I live in south central Pennsylvania. I mention this because I generally try to order my seeds and supplies from growers which live in the same type of climate zone as my own.

Now I have noticed a problem on my beans this year which I have never seen before. I have scoured thru about a dozen different books (most of them on organic control since that's how I grow) and I have now spent over two hours on this machine looking at website after site trying to find this problem and no one is showing any images of this.

Normally I hit the Rodale Institute site for help if needed but even they don't have it.

So does anyone else know of a good site which gives good quality photos which I can try?

To date, I have just been removing all the diseased leaves and burning them everyday but I need to find someone who can explain what this is and what I need to do to stop it before I lose all my bean patch this year.

Thanks for the help if you know of a good site I can try.

judsoncarroll4

Can you post a photo here? If you have, I missed it.

Merin Porter

Agree with @judsoncarroll4 -- worth posting a pic here to see if someone might have dealt with this before.

Also, I have found my local extension agent to be a good resource for these types of issues....

shllnzl

Try this site. They have good photos.

https://www.gardensalive.com/pest_disease_guide

greyfurball

To everyone...

Yes when I was typing the first message I was thinking I wished I had a pic of it to show you guys (which is another reason I was scouring this machine trying to find it on all the beans sites).

But the one advantage/sometimes disadvantage to being retired from business is you can voluntarily give up all those technological contraptions and re-learn how to live without all the cute stuff. And that's exactly what I did. I no longer have the capabilities of taking pics and uploading them to this machine.

And @shllnzl , yes I did find it on the site you mentioned. I don't like their answer but at least now I know what I am looking for and I can check around some more to find if I have any options for control. It just amazes me I could not find this anywhere else in all the resources I tried. I guess it's just because this problem is created by cold humid weather which is kind of unusual for a garden in this area in June. But that's just why the other discussion "Cold Start To Summer" is so popular right now with so many people on this site also. Seems there's lots of us having problems with the weather.

seeker.nancy - Central Texas

What do the leaves look like? Did the site @shllnzl give it a name and if so, what was it? I'm not even growing green beans this year because mine did horrible and died about the time they were to start bearing beans.

greyfurball

@seeker.nancy

Botrytis blight is what it was called. It looks like grey mold on much of the leaves. As each day goes by if you do not remove the affected leaves the mold grows wider and wider, soon affecting the whole leaf and many other leaves on the plant(s).

It spreads rapidly so they say to remove the entire plant when you see it and discard away from your garden area.

So I noticed it early and I started removing leaves as soon as I saw it so I am hoping I can contain it without pulling out all my plants.

Time will tell ...just have to wait and see.

As for what it looks like, do you know what leafminers look like? They look like a thin grey line growing wider and longer as the insect travels the leaf. This botrytis blight/grey mold has that coloring but it affects a much wider area on the leaf. I'll go find an image on Google Images and add it here.

Depending on the part of the country it can be white, red, brown or grey. My area seems to be grey is common.

The recommended solution is a copper fungicide but that can not be used in a true organic garden so after a lot of looking around and reading I ended up with trying the baking soda/soap and vege oil in water solution to try to contain it. Supposedly it will not stop it on any leaf already infected (but I've pulled all of them anyway) but it will hopefully help to stop its spread on unaffected leaves. Since I have 5 varieties of beans in my garden I can only hope this is going to work.

seeker.nancy - Central Texas

Wow, well you are certainly staying on top of it so hopefully this will do the trick. Please keep us posted and who knows, maybe I will grow them again next year lol. I certainly like having them so I'm really cheering you on!