Broad Bean Plants Fading

[RonParticipant]

Charles.
Would you be able to throw any light on this problem please?

In one of my No Dig beds I planted about 50 healthy looking Broad Bean plants more than three months ago. The bed had main crop potatoes in it last year which gave an excellent result. The potatoes were earthed up using homemade compost or old farmyard manure. The bed was left empty after cropping and had a further layer of home made compost about a month before the Broad Beans went in.

The plants over the last 4 -6 weeks are looking increasingly unhealthy (yellowing) and I fear these will not mature as they should and will be a total loss.

I’m considering sending a sample of soil and plants for testing to see if there is anything untoward with them, but would appreciate any advice you can offer, thanks.

Adjacent beds which also had the same potatoes last year, procedure and results were replanted late 2017 with purple sprouting, onions and show no problems.
Regards.

[charlesModerator]

Hello Ron, I wonder if they took a hit from those freezing winds six weeks ago, at a time when they were quite tall already. Are the stems black perhaps?

[RonParticipant]

Hi Charles.
Thanks for your quick reply, one of the attached photos (inside the tunnel) was taken today. There does seem a slight improvement so likely perhaps I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. As you can see, no black stems as you questioned. Hopefully they are on the right-side now. But as you suggested, they did get caught with snow blowing through the thermal net to the inside of the tunnel as the second picture shows.
Thanks for your trouble.
Ron.

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[RonParticipant]

Charles.
Apologies, original photo files too large to send.
Hopefully reduced OK now.
Ron.

[charlesModerator]

They look fine to me. Just less green than if it had been less cold!
A lot of plants have struggled this last six weeks: my turnip seedlings for example, even under fleece, are pale. Lack of available nitrogen with soil relatively cold.

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