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I noticed these strange looking pole bean leaves a few days ago. They seem to be spreading to other poles. The first appear on the purple pole beans and the others are on green pole beans. The green pole beans are from my GF’s small village in Italy. He immigrated in 1906. Needless to say, the seeds are irreplaceable.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. What is the problem? And, what is the treatment?
Kinda looks like curly top virus which is usually spread by leaf hoppers but honestly i’d contact your local extension office and ask them. Diseases and pests can be very localized and treatments the same. And it’s free expert advice.
Mosaic Virus I think. The puckering, cupping and curling distortion of the leaves is one of the beginning symptoms of common bean mosaic virus, but the plants might have been infected with some other kind of bean virus that has similar effects on the leaves and causes that kind of distortion. Watch for the already effected puckered leaves to start getting yellow or dark brown spots on them as they age and the disease progresses. If it's mosaic virus your seeds are probably no good anymore since the virus can be carried in the seeds. It can also be carried and transmitted by aphids. Here's some information about bean mosaic virus.
I can't tell you about treatments. If they were mine the only treatment they'd get from me would be to pull the whole darned lot of them out of ground whether they look infected or not and dispose of them since I wouldn't want to risk them transmitting a virus to other types of plants in the garden.
Thank you both for your comments. I pulled more than half of my bean plants with infected leaves. I will continue to monitor the remaining 4 poles for signs of infection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Threerun
Kinda looks like curly top virus which is usually spread by leaf hoppers but honestly i’d contact your local extension office and ask them. Diseases and pests can be very localized and treatments the same. And it’s free expert advice.
Great suggestion. Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoisite
Mosaic Virus I think. The puckering, cupping and curling distortion of the leaves is one of the beginning symptoms of common bean mosaic virus, but the plants might have been infected with some other kind of bean virus that has similar effects on the leaves and causes that kind of distortion. Watch for the already effected puckered leaves to start getting yellow or dark brown spots on them as they age and the disease progresses. If it's mosaic virus your seeds are probably no good anymore since the virus can be carried in the seeds. It can also be carried and transmitted by aphids. Here's some information about bean mosaic virus.
I can't tell you about treatments. If they were mine the only treatment they'd get from me would be to pull the whole darned lot of them out of ground whether they look infected or not and dispose of them since I wouldn't want to risk them transmitting a virus to other types of plants in the garden.
Zoisite, when you say “If it's mosaic virus your seeds are probably no good anymore”, do you mean the existing bean seeds, or the seeds that would be used if harvested from the current crop?
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For future posters - A question - I have a few seeds from the last 2 years. Are these seeds still good to plant next year?
I am heartbroken that I may lose all my seeds. I have been planting my GF’s beans for too many years to count. All of his children are gone, and I was the last one of his grandchildren who continued to plant his beans. My daughter doesn’t care for beans and hasn’t planted them in several years.
Those who are familiar with the mosaic virus - after examining the remaining poles, I discovered that the leaves from the bottom of the poles to about halfway up look fine. However the smaller leaves towards the top of the poles look like my picture. Is that the way the virus attacks the plant? It looks like the growth of the vines has been stunted at the point where the leaves get infected.
Thank you both for your comments. I pulled more than half of my bean plants with infected leaves. I will continue to monitor the remaining 4 poles for signs of infection.
Great suggestion. Thank you.
Zoisite, when you say “If it's mosaic virus your seeds are probably no good anymore”, do you mean the existing bean seeds, or the seeds that would be used if harvested from the current crop?
*******
For future posters - A question - I have a few seeds from the last 2 years. Are these seeds still good to plant next year?
I am heartbroken that I may lose all my seeds. I have been planting my GF’s beans for too many years to count. All of his children are gone, and I was the last one of his grandchildren who continued to plant his beans. My daughter doesn’t care for beans and hasn’t planted them in several years.
Again thanks for the replies.
It's an either/or situation or it could be both. Have you been strictly using each past year's collected seed beans as stock to plant the following spring or have you been saving up seed beans and sometimes using the older ones from 2, 3 or 4 or more previous years ago to plant? I gather this is the first time you've seen this infection in all the years you've been planting this species and I would want to know if this year's plants all came from last year's collected stock of seed beans or from previous years' seeds. Presumably the seeds you had from 2, 3, 4 or more years ago did not contain the virus. It's possible there were no viruses in previous years' seed stock and any of the old seeds you have might very well be okay. The tricky thing you need to figure out is, does this year's infection come from last year's collected seeds which you planted this spring or does this infection result from some outside vector that only showed up in your environment this year for the first time? i.e. soil, insects, animals, birds, water, climate anomolies, somebody or something else that may have come in contact with the virus elsewhere this spring and then carried the virus to your property and transmitted it to this year's new plants.
I understand the sentimental value and importance of continuing with your grandfather's legacy beans if at all possible. You can't use any seeds from last year's seeds which produced this year's crop because the virus is in these current plants and was possibly in last year's seeds even though you never saw evidence of it in last year's parent plants. And you shouldn't try to use any seeds produced this year even if they come from plants that look healthy because chances are every one of your remaining bean plants has the virus.
But you could do a controlled experiment next spring by planting older seeds from previous years to see if they're viable and whether or not there is an appearance of the virus in any of them next year. But to do that next year you could not plant them in the ground as you've usually done (the virus may now be in your outdoor soil) nor can you plant any together in groups.
They'd have to be planted in a controlled and isolated environment in all new fresh soil that you get from somewhere else. Each seed planted would have to be planted alone all by itself in it's own pot near a pole and labelled with the date of the year the seed was collected. The pots of bean plants would need to be isolated from any other veggie plants you have in your gardens that might attract aphids, leaf hoppers, etc. and the pots would also have to be kept isolated from each other too so that none of the growing bean plants can touch each other.
It would be like conducting a sterile laboratory experiment to find healthy plants that don't have the virus or are resistant to it. If you are successful growing some that way and they're virus-free, don't eat the new green beans, let them all mature into seed beans. Save them all and keep each set of seeds dated and separate from each other older years' seeds. Then repeat the whole same process all over again the next spring with the biggest and best of seeds, maybe even do it a 3rd year or more until you know for sure that you have reproduced a consistently healthy, virus-free strain of grandfather's beans.
I'm not saying that's what you should do, only what you could do to try to save and continue with grandfather's legacy beans to be healthy and wholesome like they were before this virus presented itself.
I agree with Threerun's suggestion that you should contact your local extension office and submit photos for advice and possible other options to help determine your best course of action. And do plenty of research online about all other possibilities. Good luck.
I did contact my local Penn State Agricultural Extension office and I am awaiting their reply.
Because all my bean plants were eaten by rabbits last year. I had no “new” seeds. The seeds I planted this year, were from 2 years ago, when I had a bumper crop of everything I planted.
After I created this post, I realized that last year in the area where I planted this year’s beans, I planted tomatoes. The tomatoes experienced, what I thought was late blight. I am not sure what caused this last year. Leaves were wilting, yellow with black spots, etc. I needed to pull all the tomato plants. Unfortunately, I have no pix of last year’s tomato plants.
I’m wondering now if planting the beans in this area caused this “issue” because of contaminated soil from last year.
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For future posters - A question - I have a few seeds from the last 2 years. Are these seeds still good to plant next year?
Not sure about beans, but I had some luffa sponge seeds in a can in my shed for several years. A friend asked if he could try to plant some of them. Not all, but most had healthy plants and sponges.
You mentioned rabbits ate all your bean plants one year. A friend of mine has a good repellant for rabbit, deer and any other critter that snacks on your garden. He sprinkles the foliage with alum powder. That will pucker their mouths up and they won't want to come back.
Not sure about beans, but I had some luffa sponge seeds in a can in my shed for several years. A friend asked if he could try to plant some of them. Not all, but most had healthy plants and sponges.
You mentioned rabbits ate all your bean plants one year. A friend of mine has a good repellant for rabbit, deer and any other critter that snacks on your garden. He sprinkles the foliage with alum powder. That will pucker their mouths up and they won't want to come back.
Thanks for the hint. This year I placed 4’ high chicken wire around the garden. No more rabbit issues.
I never had a lot of room for a garden but I had a neat ideal for pole beans. I planted them around the legs of an A frame swing set. Also put a piece of twine from the cross piece to the ground so a vine could grow up there too. Had plenty of beans!
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