Why Are My Green Bean Plant Leaves Turning Yellow?

Bean plants are known as the harbingers of summer seasons, as they provide the first vegetable harvests while still providing pods even during the summer. They require proper care and maintenance, like all plants, to continue producing beans for harvesting, so you’ll need to ensure that all parts of the plant are in good health, down from the roots up until the leaves.

But what happens when the leaves begin to yellow? You might be wondering, “why are my green bean plant leaves turning yellow?”

There are various reasons why it happens, so read on to find out so you can identify the cause and what you can do to remedy your green bean plant leaves.

Why Are My Green Bean Plant Leaves Turning Yellow?

Before anything else, gardeners must know that there are various beans for the home garden, with any type of bean plant being able to get yellow leaves. Here are the following main bean plant varieties:

• Bush beans would produce the long and classic green beans, which are great for canning, freezing, or to eat fresh
• Pole beans would grow in vined habits, producing dangling green pods
• Snap peas are smaller, engineered without strings so it’s less fibrous

So, why do you see that your garden bean plants have yellow leaves, regardless of the variety you planted? Here are several reasons why:

Your Soil

The first thing you need to do is examine the planting location, as your soil may be the culprit. Check if the soil is well-drained and under full sun, tilled with a lot of good compost.

If you have alkali soil, this may cause iron chlorosis, which you can check through a soil test or by pouring vinegar in the soil. If the soil bubbles from the vinegar, it is alkaline. You may add chelated iron or a soil acidifier to help, which may remedy the yellow leaves.

The Roots

Bean plants have shallow roots, so when hoeing, you have to exercise more care, so you prevent injuring the plants’ roots. Furthermore, remove old plant debris from the bean plant area, because these might host disease organisms that cause your leaves to yellow. It’s also best that you practice crop rotation every year to ensure that your garden soils don’t transfer diseases to your bean plants.

Lack of Nutrients

Bean plants need a certain amount of sun every day. For example, pole beans require at least eight hours of sunlight daily. If not, the leaves might begin to yellow, as they won’t be able to produce as much chlorophyll. Lack of sunlight may also keep the water from drying on leaves after rains, which lead to fungal diseases.

The same goes for not enough, or too much, water. Give your bean plants enough water and keep their soil moist. But do NOT flood it, as this may cause rot roots, causing the leaves to yellow. You can check the root health by removing dirt over your plants’ roots.

Furthermore, the lack of proper fertilization may affect your bean plant’s health, which causes yellow leaves. Make sure you have your soils tested to know what fertilizers are necessary, based on the soil test results.

Nitrogen deficiency may cause plants and leaves to turn light green or yellow, as well as result in poor harvesting. The same goes for a manganese deficiency, which causes older leaves to yellow and produces dead brown spots.

Virus and Disease

If ever you still have yellow leaves on your bean plants, then the most likely cause is a disease. While there are other several causes, the most common are usually from blight or the mosaic virus.

When a bacterium is the main cause of your leaves yellowing, then you’ll notice that the first sign is water spotting or leaf edges that are dry and/or brown. This would spread through the entire leaf, causing the foliage to die than drop off. When this happens, the plant won’t be able to collect solar energy, which negatively affects its health.

Furthermore, the yellow leaves may come from blight, as mentioned above. This is a disease that causes round yellow spots, slowly blending until the entire leaf turns yellow. This bacteria lives in soil or introduced in infected seeds, so make sure that you select and plant bean seeds resistant to blight, as well as rotate your bean crop.

Yellow leaves may also be due to a viral infection, with the mosaic virus affecting various vegetable crops, with bean mosaic viruses that appear in different regions. The first signs are multi-colored spots on the plants’ leaves, which follows by yellow leaves to brown leaves.

If bush or pole peans suffer from yellow leaves, the virus may be the problem. However, there isn’t any cure for this.

Viral infections on plants may come from low nutrient levels, as well as herbicide injury, though they most likely come from infected bean plant seeds. So, avoid saving seeds every year, since they can have the virus. Use mosaic resistant bean seeds so you can reduce the likelihood of yellow leaves on your plants.

Other viruses may come from sucking insects like aphids, so make sure that besides the usual fertilization and watering, you practice proper pest control. Remember, that you can struggle with pests not only in your garden but at home too. If you have problems with bed bugs use a non-toxic bed bug powder.

Would you like to know more about bean plants and why they may have yellow leaves? Here is an informative video you should check out:

Wrapping It Up

There are various reasons why your green plant beans may be turning yellow. Knowing the reason behind it is crucial so you know what you can do to either remedy the yellow leaves or to prevent it from happening to future plants.

Hopefully, this article answered your question, “why are my green bean plant leaves turning yellow?” Now that you know the answer, take proper action, and care for your green bean plants better to prevent its yellowing of leaves.