Chocolate spot on broad beans

[hopalong]

My Aquadulce broad beans, planted in the autumn were doing really well.  I harvested a few bowls of delicious beans up to about 2 weeks ago and then they all began to develop chocolate spot on the leaves, the stems started going brown and the pods failed to develop. Any thoughts on what causes this and how I can stop it happening again? Maybe I didn't give them enough Growmore when I planted them? Others on my allotment site don't seem to have this problem.

[hopalong]

[Fork]

I read somewhere that too much nitrogen at the time of planting and too tightly spaced will increase the risk of chocolate spot.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Yours must have had it real bad; I'm always getting chocolate spot on my AQC's, and they never take any notice.

[hopalong]

Thanks for the comments.  Too much nitrogen may well be the reason, or the fact that the soil was a bit too heavy or (although I don't think so) that the plants were a bit too close together . Another possibility is that the broad beans were planted too close to onions and garlic.  Bob Flowerdew says in his "Organic Bible" that they do badly with those; they do well with brassicas, carrots, celery, potatoes and most herbs.  We live and learn. ::)