Polytunnel and broadbeans advice

[aberdeenangus]

Having recently moved to the far north of scotland to a home with a polytunnel I have a couple of questions on growing undercover - can anyone help?

I overwintered broadbeans in my polytunnel and the stems on 50% turned black and limp (rot?). Can anyone tell me why - frost / virus?

Also I have green algae on the soil - what can I do to erradicate this? The soil was manured last september.

[broadway]

Hi aberdeenangus,

Firstly welcome to the vine.

I can't answer your question but I will be watching the expert answers as some of my bb's also have black stems and others look fine??

[GUM69bo]

broad beans

hi aberdeenangus

just looked up and it seems u do have a case of FOOT ROT/ ROOT ROT
best bet is 2 burn any diseased plants and water soil with CHESHUNT COMPOUND to check spread of disease 2 other plants
as 4 the algea on soil id guess that ground 2 damp

hope this helps

[aberdeenangus]

Thanks. Will do.

[bevanbawb]

Hi Aberdeenangus
Don't know if I'm too late in replying but I usually find that if your broad beans are going black it's usually down to frost damage.
I know that a few of my own broadies caught a bit of frost last week on their leaf tips and ended up going black and crispy where affected, this can also happen to the stems if they are hit by frost regularly.
Not sure about the algae though, i'd expect it to occur in overly wet areas, what are the conditions like where you have yours?
Maybe you could just dig it over and see if it comes back?