whats happening to our swiss chard?

[tfb4me]

I'm not 100%. Sure what's going on here. Does anybody have any idea?

 

[tfb4me]

The plants were started from seed in the greenhouse and trans planted outside. They took off just fine then the rains came. Here we are almost 2 weeks later and they went from perfectly happy to almost completely destroyed.I did spray with BTK last night as an attempt to get them under control..

 

[Chuck]

looks to me like root rot due to too much water

 

[tfb4me]

Thats what I had originally thought but when I sprayed last night there were hundreds of tiny fruit flies coming off the plants. I hope that the plants are salvageable butat this point it may be quicker to pull them and reseed..

 

[Chuck]

Thats what I had originally thought but when I sprayed last night there were hundreds of tiny fruit flies coming off the plants. I hope that the plants are salvageable butat this point it may be quicker to pull them and reseed..

Fruit flies aren't causing the leaves to curl, turn brown and die. An easy remedy for the fruit flies is to use 2 oz spinosad, 1 oz molasses per gallon of water in a soil drench

 

[Beth_B]

I think Chuck nailed it.....too much rain is causing the leaf damage. The little flies are possibly fungus gnats breeding in the soil but that's a side effect of damp conditions and not the proximate cause of the damage. Google - there are many home remedies for them. I got them last year because it was so rainy here but while annoying they didn't really damage the plants. I sprayed with dish soap and water and also neem oil and that cleared them up.

Your chard should come back as long as the soil has a chance to dry out.

 

[headfullofbees]

Fruit flies are attracted by the rot.
Chard grows quickly.
You'll be eating it sooner if you start again.