Hey all,

So I transplanted my healthy broccoli seedlings this past weekend into raised beds. Soil in the beds is a nice topsoil/compost mix. Within a day of transplanting, I started getting an issue on all plants. The bottom set of true leaves became spotted and then wilted and are dying or dead. Now the next set of true leaves are beginning to spot. I'm keeping the soil watered, but I don't think overwatered. Nothing seems to help. I'm worried my crop of 30 plants will all slowly die!
Is this transplant shock that they will recover from, or something else?
Nate

It appears that they made the transition from green house to raised beds too fast .A common problem if you don't harden off (gradually acclimate plants to a new environment) If so it looks like your plants are already in recovery mode. It is possible that you have some organism that attack the roots. This is accelerated in wet soil. If the plants continue to deteriorate I would suspect one of the fungi like damping off or clubroot. https://plantvillage.psu.edu/t...

How do those spotted leaves look like on the underside?

ElPolloDiablo said:How do those spotted leaves look like on the underside?

Yeah, the larger leaf reeks of whitefly damage to me (I've seen quite a lot of that!). You'll find tiny eggs on the underside if that's the case. I treat that with neem oil with good results (you have to lift the leaf and hit the bottom with it but good), but some friends have told me that it doesn't work for them. An insecticidal soap should work if neem doesn't.

^Also, I don't know if said friends are using neem correctly. It's pretty solid at room temperature (it solidifies at about 68-70), so you have to warm it gently (I toss the bottle into a warm water bath since my house is often below 70 indoors), then mix a teaspoon and a half into a quart of very warm water (as hot as your tap will go is probably advisable). By the time you make it out to your garden, it will probably try to harden up again, so you have to constantly swirl it into the now warm water as you spray. It should stink to high heaven throughout the process (neem is FOUL smelling, but I'm okay with that since it really works for me). I never use a sprayer bigger than a quart because I need it to stay warm and liquid during the process...if I need more than the quart, I go back in and repeat.

Were you growing other brassica? Or other things that whiteflies bother? It seems unlikely that whiteflies would descend en masse so quickly.
I was plagued with whiteflies at time last year, on some brassicas,even saw some over winter and early spring, but none at the moment. Mysterious.

sallyg said:Were you growing other brassica? Or other things that whiteflies bother? It seems unlikely that whiteflies would descend en masse so quickly.

It might not be OP. I have whitefly problems probably because I have a lot of neighbors who grow ornamental brassicas in their landscape. No matter how aggressively I attack them in the food garden, they're out there breeding and feeding on large landscape plants a yard or two away... I have not yet mixed up a bottle of neem oil and sprayed the neighbors' landscapes while out on a dog walk.