Allotments 4 All

Hi

I went up to my allotment yesterday and checked my broad bean plants and newly emerging seeds.

I noticed that the leaves had notches in them, with some of the leaves almost gone.  The newly emerging seeds have also been attacked.

I asked one of the guys about the problem, and he said it was caused by a "fly".  However I can't find anything in my books about flies, but it suggests it might be a weevil.

I haven't grown broad beans before, so I'm a little stumped at what the cause may be.

Your help would be appreciated please.

Thanks

Do your leaves look like this


Bean weevil damage

Yes that's exactly how they look  :-[

Many thanks.

Is there anything I can do to get rid of it?  I don't want to use pestcides as the allotment is purely organic.

Thanks again for identifying it

Often you can ignore a bit of nibbling and the plants will survive.
You could look on the underside of the leaves and remove the beetles by hand.

I put my BB in freezer for a few days prior to planting it is supposed to deter the weevils and the blackfly.  Though I still found a live black beetle amongst the beans I had put to chit. 

I looked at the pics of bean weevil on google and some are a black beetles and some are green. 

I try and discard any beans or peas with black holes in them.

Quick question, my beans also have the serrated/notched edges but otherwise the plants look healthy enough plenty of flowers, strong growth etc so will the weevil affect the eventual bean crop?

I will check them over at the weekend and try to remove anything that looks suspiciously like a weevil, but if they do no long term harm then I would rather leave be.

Thanks.

I am not sure I have ever seen BB without nibbled leaves.  So cannot say if they would crop better without them.

My B/B always had nibbled leaves before I used the freezing tip.  The  nibbling did not seem to cause any problems to their growth etc..   I  believe the advice on freezing was from either Geff Hamilton or Bob Flowerdew.

Suggest you don't worry about the nibbled leaves - they seem to grow out of it fine.