Broad bean: new growth twisted, puckered or distorted

What it is likely to be on broad bean

1. Aphids

   Candidate 1very common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Aphids

   Checked 2026-08-13

   Sap-feeding insects that cluster on soft growing tips and leaf undersides, distorting new growth and leaving sticky honeydew that blackens with sooty mould. Most garden infestations are transient and end when predators catch up.

   Points towards it

   • · aphids are visible in clusters on the distorted tips
   • · honeydew on the growth below confirms sap-feeding above it
   • · aphid feeding distorts tissue that was still expanding

   Argues against it

   • · no pest can be found, and aphid distortion is normally accompanied by visible colonies. Distortion on every growing point with nothing feeding on it needs an identification rather than a treatment

   Check this next

   Open out a distorted tip and look inside it. Aphids shelter within the curled leaves, so a tip that looks clean from outside may not be — and a tip that is genuinely clean points away from aphids entirely.

   What to do now

   Wash the colonies off the growing tips with a jet of water and check again in a few days. If no pest is present, stop feeding and spraying and seek an identification before treating anything.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Aphids — control

   Checked 2026-08-13

2. Aphids

   Candidate 2very common on this plant

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Black bean aphid

   Checked 2026-08-13

   Sap-feeding insects that cluster on soft growing tips and leaf undersides, distorting new growth and leaving sticky honeydew that blackens with sooty mould. Most garden infestations are transient and end when predators catch up.

   Points towards it

   • · black bean aphid colonises the soft growing tip and nothing else
   • · the colony is dense, black and unmistakable

   Argues against it

   • · the lower leaves are not where this insect feeds

   Check this next

   Look at the top ten centimetres of the plant. Black bean aphid covers the growing tip in a solid black mass and leaves the rest of the plant untouched, which is a distribution nothing else on a broad bean produces — and it arrives just as the lowest pods begin to set, which is exactly when the tip stops being needed.

   What to do now

   Pinch out the top of each plant once the lowest trusses have set pods and put the tips in the compost. This removes the colony and the tissue it needs in one action, and it is what an autumn-sown crop is grown for — the beans are already made and the tip is surplus. Sowing in autumn to crop before the aphid arrives avoids it entirely.

   ·source

   Sourced guidancehigh confidence

   • Royal Horticultural Society: Broad beans — growing

   Checked 2026-08-13

Narrow it down

This page lists everything at once, which is the right shape for reading and the wrong shape for deciding. The interactive tool asks one question at a time, starting with whichever would separate these causes fastest, and stops as soon as further answers would not help.

Opens with the plant and the symptom already set. Nothing you answer is stored or sent anywhere — the answers live in the address bar and nowhere else.

What this does not cover

These are the causes GrowingHQ holds rules for on broad bean — not every cause there is. Where several problems look alike, the honest answer is often that they cannot be told apart by eye, and a page that named one would be guessing. If none of the above fits, the general new growth twisted, puckered or distorted page lists causes across all plants, and the Broad bean profile lists the problems it is prone to.