frost damage or something more sinister on pea plants

[Karen]

Hey Charles,

I checked on my peas and discovered some of them look horribly pale. Could this be due to frost damage from the -3/-4 degrees Celsius temp we got a few days ago for a night?

Or is it something more sinister like the aminopyralid or some virus? Am hoping it is because of frost damage.

Will they recover or would you suggest I sow another batch to replace the discoloured ones.

The weather has gone insane again this year. 🙁

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[charles]

Karen it is not aminopyralid which would be making the growing points all twisted and curled in.
At least they are growing and look ok, yes v pale, I suspect a combination of cold conditions, which slows uptake of nitrogen, and perhaps a non-rich compost with wood?
Even if the latter, when it warms up next week, growth should be stronger.

[Karen]

Whew! Thanks Charles. I feel a lot more assured. I was really hoping that it was due to the low temperatures and possibly cold wind too. I have a few rows of different varieties of peas. Some looked this pale and some didn’t. The compost we used could possibly be weak too and perhaps a wee bit more woody? Will be more diligent and conscientious with compost making now and possibly adding animal manure to the compost heap too.

Some of the peas that looked very pale were in the rows where we used supposedly ´horse manure´ from a neighbour. However, we have been rather dissatisfied with them as they looked horribly dry and didn’t really look like the usual well rotted horse manure we used to get. We´re unsure what he actually gave us. 🙁

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