wilting broccoli

Just yesterday my broccoli were looking healthy, upright and vibrant, but today the leaves have all drooped and gone a pale grey green! What happened? what have i done wrong, it was doing so well, there's no sign of the florets yet but the leaves looked in perfect condition until today. Anyone got any ideas or advice on how I can save it

 

Most likely a problem at root level. Could be cabbage root fly or possibly club root. You should be able to check if it's either of these by scraping a bit of soil away from the roots. There are now no chemical cures available (as far as I know) for either club root or root fly - prevention is the only route to take and if you've got one or the other it's too late now. The only thing you might try is foliar feeding, but I doubt if it will help much.

 

I believe club root risk can be reduced by altering the soil pH to slightly the acid, but that's from something I read, not from experience.

 

See this clueless >
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/club-root-one-23079.html

 

Thanks for that. From that it seems we should take the pH to the alkaline side rather than acid as I previously thought, as indicated by the addition of lots of lime. Although 1lb of lime to a gallon of water sounds like a lot to me, that would potentially make a fairly caustic solution, but then I guess it depends how much of this solution was used and over how big an area.

 

New potato

Welcome to the forum.

The sudden collapse of brassica plants strongly suggests cabbage root fly to me.

I have a painful memory of a line of perfect young Greyhound cabbage plants suddenly flopping in the first hot week of summer some years ago. I lifted a couple and found the roots were a squirming mass of cabbage root fly grubs. Try lifting a couple and see if you find the same. Like Dave W says, there's no cure, I'm afraid.

 

I agree. The word sudden says it all. Clubroot is similar, but not sudden.

 

thanks for your replies guys, i'm very new to this gardening stuff and just trying to fumble my way through and it looks like i've got a lot to learn about soil ph and pests, so thanks again for your advice but on the upside my broccoli seems to have made a miraculos recovery and i haven't really done anything except move the pot, so i'm thinking it was perhaps just not catching as much rain as the over pots and became dehydrated, who knows but i will be keeping an eye on it

 

I planted out about 30 broccoli plants in May, they look fine except that in the 2 months since then (and most recently yesterday) I find one that has suddenly wilted and the leaves gone a slightly blue/grey colour. After a few days they show no sign of recovery so I dig them up to have a close look at the roots. No sign at all of any cabbage root fly maggots, or as far as I know any sign of club root. Photos show one I dug up (with close-up of roots) and the the latest victim this morning still in the broccoli bed. Any ideas please?

 

The root system looks small to me.
I'd guess at clubroot.

 

I did study various photos of clubroot and the roots have fat, chubby 'galls' on them. I could be wrong but the roots on mine look perfectly normal to me, in that respect at least.

 

I think they develop like that, I have clubroot in my soil so dont grow brassicas anymore, but they often do start out ok, the disease gets worse as the season progresses.

If left they would probably have a more marked clubroot look at the end of summer.

Just my opinion.

 

Could it be that it (they) were planted too shallowly, found only the water you gave them when small and did not then develop a full root system to reach the water they now need, possibly due to soil conditions.(fertility/consolidation)
I would expect that they would be in full production 70-80 days from transplant at 6 leaf stage. How are the other 28 ?

 

In my last photo you can see one of the other 28 healthy plants next to the failed one. They are purple sprouting broccoli so no production expected until next year! As you can see the other plants are well developed with 12 or more leaves. I do have a less than ideal situation here as we live in East Anglia in an area very popular with pigeons, so I can only grow brassicas inside a permanently constructed cage, which of course prevents me from rotating the crops annually as I would like to.

 

Sympathy re the pigeons, but they are good for flying steak* sandwiches!!
Perhaps build a moveable add on to the cage, alternating from left to right would give a three year rotation option. Have managed to escape club root by growing all my own brassicaes and refusing ANY vegetable plants from friends,neighbours and relatives last twenty years..... Everything is planted under debris netting on alkathene tube hoops.
*Jamie Oliver recipe book