74°F
weather icon Clear

Beans’ stem rot could be cold, cutworms

Question: I found a couple of beans in my garden that have been devoured at the base. Could it be some sort of soil-borne larva or possibly a virus? Any ideas would be helpful. I did find one small white worm about a half-centimeter long near the root about an inch away.

It could be a couple of things. First, with cool weather and cool soils, it might be collar rot disease that rots the stem at soil level.

This will happen if you plant beans too early in cold soils. Some varieties of beans are more susceptible to this than others.

The first indicator is that some plants appear stunted and grow poorly.

I usually end up removing these plants and hope the weather warms up.

The other problem can be cutworms. You should be spraying or dusting the soil surface around these plants with Dipel or Thuricide, an organic pesticide. This is the time of year you should be doing that anyway for a variety of pests in the vegetable garden.

Bob Morris is a professor emeritus in horticulture with the University of Nevada and can be reached at extremehort@aol.com. Visit his blog at
xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. For more gardening advice, see the Home section of Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal.

THE LATEST
Some petunia varieties can stand up to our summer heat

There are lots of different kinds of petunias. For instance, the Madness Summer Series can take the heat, but petunias typically are not known for that.

Watch out for hornworms lurking in your garden

Anyone who has been gardening for a while has a horror story or two about hornworms, which infest many vegetables in the tomato family.

What can be done about high boron levels in soil?

Boron is one of the salts commonly found in desert soils. It can be present naturally or it can accumulate over the years in such places as horse corrals.

Do honeybees prefer pink flowers over white ones?

All of the so-called temperate fruit trees flower in the spring. The white-flowered types such as almonds, plums and pluots, apples and pears usually flower a bit later.

Is redbud tree a good choice for pool area?

My landscaper is recommending a redbud tree in the planter attached to my pool. I asked him if that’s a good tree to plant so close to the pool.

Can scent tell me what kind of plant this is?

You should smell a big difference between bay laurel and cherry laurel, which come from different plant families despite their similar names.