Gardeners: brown spots on pea leaves.

Cafe Society
1

I’m growing peas, amongst other things, this year. They’re now quite large (about a foot to a foot and a half tall) and climbing up some stakes.

However, some of the peas are starting to get discoloured leaves, turning yellow, with brown rust-like spots on them. I’ve been watering them regularly, feeding them occassionally and spraying some “organic” pesticide onto them every week (just general stuff for fruit and vegetable plants bought from B&Q). However, this doesn’t seem to be helping. I made sure not to set the plants too close to each other, and also made sure to rotate my crops from last year.

We’ve been getting lots of sun this year, with a few days of rain.

Has anyone any idea what is causing this?

2

Try this for pictures of blight. I would expect it to be blight, but less likely is the sprays you have used. Organic sprays can burn also.

http://vegdis.cas.psu.edu/VegDisases/Identification_files/peas_blight.html

3

I’ve already looked at that page. It doesn’t look anything like those, I’m afraid. The leaves have turned a yellow colour and there’s tiny brown pin pricks all over them.

Thanks, anyway.

4

Yellowing could be from the roots rotting off from too much water. Insects could cause leaf damage from sucking the sap in the leaves. Can you post a picture?

5

Here’s a photo of pea rust. The bad news is that, if it’s a disease rather than a pest, by the time you see symptoms, it’s too late to do anything about it, in the sense that you can’t “cure” it.

Is there anything in Scotland like the US Extension Service system? (Extension is associated with the US land-grant college system.) Every county in the US has an Extension office that is there to get agricultural research out to the people who can benefit from it. In my area, I could take a sample to the county extension office and there would probably be someone who could make a diagnosis – pest or disease.

Spraying a pesticide every week, even if it’s organic, is not a good idea if there’s no specific pest you’re trying to control. Insecticidal soap, for example, will kill ladybug larvae just as readily as it kills other soft-bodied insects. Organic or not, ALWAYS read the label and NEVER apply it more frequently or use greater quantities than the label states.

6

Yeah, that looks like it.

I was using the pesticide to control aphids that have been eating my peas.

Thanks!