I don't know if I can be helpful because my asparagus has never had a disease.

Have you had freezing temperatures, or frost since those spears emerged? My first guess would be cold injury.

How strong have your winds been since the asparagus emerged because my second guess would be wind injury. Sometimes the wind can even pick up enough dust or soil and blow it through the air that the plant sustains injury from the "sand blasting" effect of the wind/soil hiting the young, tender spears.

Other than that, I'd check on the portion of the stem exactly where it is bent, on the inside bend to see if there is any sign of an insect or something nibbling it or any sort of lesion or discoloration that might indicate a disease infection.

Maybe someone who has has asparagus disease issues can tell you what it is. It is hard for me to diagnose a disease I've never seen because I'd only be guessing. My only real asparagus problem has been when it emerges on a warm day and freezes on a subsequent cold night, which is frequent here in southcentral OK since we can have 80 or even 90 degree days followed that night or the next night by freezing to sub-freezing temperatures. Having a very thick layer of mulch on the soil can help prevent this somewhat by keeping the soil from warming up too quickly in winter, which can keep the asparagus from sprouting too quickly.

Sorry for saying you cannot kill asparagus. I didn't mean to jinx your asparagus, Amy.

Dawn

What ticks me off is I seriously considered harvesting a few of these and restrained myself. I don't know why I didn't think bugs, I guess because it's so early. We had frost a few days ago, it has been since these came up. There has been wind. I will go out and investigate closer in a little while. I grew these from seed. I would think that would make disease less likely. Maybe it is a nutrient deficiency.

no sign of bugs, rabbits etc.

The upper part looks like it should. Lower stalk is flattened, slightly yellowed and kind of shriveled. Doesn't have lesions like described for rust, doesn't have discoloration described in fusarium wilt. This can be spread by seeds. I doubt I did anything to clean the seeds before I planted. I did soak them. One stem was bent over on Tues when I took pics, but I assumed that one was wind. I can't remember when we had frost. Tulsa went down to 29 last night, but my low didn't show anywhere close to that on my thermometer. There are healthy looking spears coming up, so I don't want to dig up the root to look for root rot. We will see if new sprouts do the same thing.

Maybe Dorothy will see this and comment if she had any ideas.

I wouldn't dig up the spears looking for root rot either. It probably is not necessary. If it is root rot, which I doubt, you'll know soon enough. I'm betting it is weather-related.

I had no idea it could be frost damaged. Don't know how I missed that, but I'm relieved to find it's not some disease! Tonight is a chance of a freeze. Maybe we'll stay above freezing.

My first thought was frost or freeze damage as well.

Like Dorothy, I harvest any spears that are up and above ground before frost, so late yesterday I was a harvesting madwoman. Our forecast was for 38 so I knew we'd have frost. We did. We hit 32 degrees and were frosty this morning. I harvested and froze a ton of spears.

There's frost on the ground this morning, greenhouse only went to 34. There was one "branch" that was up 3 feet tall and starting to make leaves. It is still standing. We'll see what has happened. I had 2 potatoes peaking through yesterday and dozens of seed starts that have to go out to the greenhouse for sun. 2 days of cool weather and clouds ahead, got to figure out how to keep them going. I don't have lights. Thanks for your comments.

As the spears mature they become a little tougher and more frost tolerant, but the unopened spears are very tender.

It is most-likely cold damage. I had the exact same thing happen a few weeks ago. My asparagus was coming up the 2nd week of Feb...

Yes frost ... it happened to me this last week. I should’ve used row covers I guess.

This post was in 2016. My asparagus recovered fine. You must be somewhere warm if you have asparagus up already.

I just had frost damage some of my asparagus spears do you cut them down to the ground when they get frost damage?

Ashley, that's what I'm going to do today. My asparagus looks like a wreck right now, but it's already coming back strongly.

Yes, Ashley. Cut off the damaged portions and new spears will appear soon thereafter.