Beet plant - leaves turning yellow-brown

Question

I have a beet plant that I grew from seeds. They started off great and healthy. In fact I plucked some leaves to use in a salad. After that some of the leaves are turning yellow and drying up. What could possibly be the reason?

Answer 1

The pictures show that there is not enough water. You can see cracks in the soil all near the plant.

10 minutes a day 3 times a week is not enough on a dripper system. Most drippers are 0.5-2 Gallons per hour. That comes out to be about 1/6 of a gallon 3 times a week = 1/2 a gallon per week. That is a very sad amount of water. On top of that drippers work by slowly penetrating deep into the soil. That takes time. If you only water for 10 minutes you may never penetrate below 4-6 inches.

If you are so pressed for water, you can put a bucket underneath you when you shower and get more water per day than that for your plants (obviously move the bucket when you are rinsing off soap).

Just a complete ballpark but if it is very dry you probably need ~.5 gallons per day per plant. So about 30 minutes to an hour.

You can also add mulch around the plant, which helps a lot more than you would think (I use dried leftover grass).

You can tell when it is watered enough because the ground will not be all cracked near it. You can see deep fissures into the ground. Also the soil looks pretty hard, which makes it hard for plants to grow.

EDIT With some links and numbers:

According to [bonnie guide][https://bonnieplants.com/library/how-much-water-do-vegetables-need/]: "A good general guideline is an inch of water per week, either by rain or watering; in arid climates, it is double that. In hot weather, vegetables need even more water, up to about ½ inch per week extra for every 10 degrees that the average temperature is above 60 degrees."

Now, 2-inches per week (since it is arid), plus .5 assuming the avg temp is ~70deg = 2.5 inches per week.

And as a rule of thumb: An inch of water is about 60 gallons per 100 square feet. The beet plants roots cover around 2 square feet. So you need to provide 2.5 inches => 150 gallons per 100 square feet. Since you only have one dripper per plant, and each plant is ~ 2square feet (including roots), you need about 3 gallons per plant.

Depending on which dripper type you use, this is 1.5 hours (at 2 gallons/hour) to 6 hours (at .5 gallons/hour) of total drip time per week.

So the half hour you are giving it a week per plant is not enough.

Answer 2

Beets are relatively unharmed by bugs and disease. It could be linked with overwatering them: they grow too quick for the available minerals.

From the research I did, this is called Brown beets problem.

SOLUTION: add Boron

The only problem they have is a lack of boron. Buy some Borax and dust it over the soil. (Borax kills fungus; is to be found in the laundry section)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming states that soluble boron is allowed in organic cultures (ref.: Gillman J. (2008). The Truth About Organic Farming).

Answer 3

Leaf miners for sure, 100%. If you feed your beets well with good quality fertilizer they can outgrow miners and have an awesome crop still, of both leaves and roots. Liquid seaweed, compost tea, a good all purpose fertilizer, ect or any combo of the above can work.

Answer 4

Those beets look like they have a bad infestation of leaf miners. They look exactly like the beets I have unsuccessfully tried to grow in my backyard for several years, and which always become riddled with leaf miners. Those beets do not appear to me to be water-stressed at all.