Broad Bean Brown Spots / Flies

[Bad Boy Club]

I assume I have blackfly on my broad beans?

Predominently on the growing tips are small black flies (duh!) & some plants have brown spots on the younger leaves also mostly at the growing tip end.

Best solution? They are all around 12" tall & some are not yet flowering.

Pictures below:

[nickdub]

Look very good to me. Can't see any blackfly on the photos but may be they are hiding in the curls of the leaves. They always start on the newest growing tips so if you are concerned try giving those a blast with a jet of water from a hose and see of you can knock them off.

Going to need plenty of water when the pods start to develop unless you get rain.

[Bad Boy Club]

There are flies on 3 out of 25 plants (2nd photo you can see them well).

One plant in particular has a lot of dark brown marks on the growing tip leaves.

[Jay-ell]

At the minute the flies aren't too bad - hand squishing or a hose zap would help take care of them.

[Thelma Sanders]

Brown spots? B beans can get Chocolate Spot, but that's usually in cool damp weather ..

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=89

[1Bee]

Making do with what I've got, I tend to go the fairy-liquid-and-watering-can route, giving an extra wash off and rub to the tips.

[nickdub]

There are flies on 3 out of 25 plants (2nd photo you can see them well).

One plant in particular has a lot of dark brown marks on the growing tip leaves.

OK right - I can see a few - if you get a serious problem, then there's 100's every few inches. The dark marks are nothing to worry about - just natural to broad beans.

[Jimny14]

I have heard some people pinch out the growing tips as it's the young growth that is most attractive to the flies. This would depend on how far on your plants are I guess. I've always just controlled mine with a jet of water and accepted that some years are worse than others. Last year I got completely ransacked by them, this year virtually nothing.

[chillithyme]

I pinch out the growing tips, where I see the black fly,when my plants are a good few months old and I have plenty of flowers and beans on the way. On a younger plant with fewer flowers, i would attempt water spraying first

[Derbydal]

I v'e picked a few broad beans today and there were some plants with black fly on the tips (realy dense iv'e been away for a few days so they were missed) iv'e pinched the tips off and sprayed em with a soap solution and rubbed them off by hand messy but it gets em off the plants B.B.C. yours don't seem to bad but if you can keep on top of em you should be ok,
atb Dal. iv'e changed my pantsLOL Dal.

[Jay-ell]

This year hasn't been bad for me. I sowed Suttons Dwarf in November and the plants came out today after a decent harvest. No black fly at all. By the time the blackfly are looking at beans as their new des res autumn sown beans are older and toucher than nearby spring sown beans.

I usually pinch out the tips once the plants are tall enough and have a reasonable amount of pods/flowers. Not only does this make them less attractive to blackfly but the tips are a great veg in themselves. As these are dwarves I didn't pinch this year.

I'll so more broadies in August to get a November crop (did that for the first time last year and it worked) and more in November to harvest May/June.