Best Runner Beans

[Potstubsdustbins]

White Lady 2.86lbs per plant? How do you manage to get such a low yield on any runner bean plant?

Last year as always I grew 8 Red Rum & 8 White Lady in buckets etc. As always the yield was over 100lbs of runner beans on average 6.25lbs per plant.

As can be seen from the pic the plants grow side x side and without weighing them separately there is no seen difference.

Colin

[horticultural_hobbit]

Colin, my sweet, all advice about white lady is welcome. I would really like to get growing runners spot on. How to get a decent dinner out of them, in terms of volume produced. I have a fair few plants, when in the past I've only had a handful

[Potstubsdustbins]

HH I have no wonderful secret I assure you. I have followed the same old way for the last *** years. Except I now chit the seeds al lah 2Sheds advice.

I set 8 seeds about a fortnight ago in the hope of getting 6 early plants. They are in a cold GH and have just started to show. Funnily after chitting, the White Lady now lead the Red Rum. Yesterday I put down the rest again in the GH.

At the end of this month they will go into their buckets etc with a fleece tied across them to proect from wind until established. From then on it really is just a case of watering and feeding. I never let the pots dry out, I feed high nitrogen until the first flowers have set and then change to high potash. I do follow the old wives tale about 'misting' but I really have no idea if it helps but as it can do no harm etc.

Colin

[GardeningMike]

Gardening Mike, I am all for people carrying out their own trials, which may give different results depending on which part of the UK you are in. Gardening Which do not state where they carried out the trial, but it is probably in the South of the UK.
They say that they trialled 5 new Runner bean / French bean crosses, but two are not available to buy yet.

I don't know any details of the 'Which? Trial' you mentioned but I know that the runner beans Starlight, Moonlight (both white-flowered) and Firestorm (red-flowered) are varieties which are reported to have Climbing French bean genes in their pedigree. This would be expected to confer a certain level of self-pollination (French beans don't need insect pollination for pod-set;they are self pollinating) which would be useful earlier in the runner bean season when there are fewer pollinating insects around. I think Starlight is a parent of Moonlight, heavier yielding but possibly later than Moonlight if I recall correctly from a visit to Tozer. Firestorm appears to be the newest Runner x French bean cross on the market (Marshall's Seeds).

I think the acid test to determine whether they are really self-pollinating, as claimed, would be to cover some of the flower trusses with netting to exclude pollinating insects (mainly bees) and see if there is any pod-set. Alternatively, you could also try growing them indoors on a windowsill, but you might need to nip out the apical bud to curtail their climbing habit...

Concerning plant trials, the important thing to bear in mind, of course, is that the varieties being compared are grown in identical environmental conditions and always to have the same reference variety in each trial so that you can also make comparisons between different trials. I carry out split pot trials, i.e. two different varieties (1 plant from each of the two varieties) grown in the same large pot, climbing up the same support, so that light and soil effects are identical for that pair.

If it's of any interest my PhD thesis was on the physiology of chilling-tolerance in Runner and French beans - mainly biochemistry so probably of little interest to readers here.

Kind regards
GardeningMike
(horticulturist)

[GardeningMike]

White Lady 2.86lbs per plant? How do you manage to get such a low yield on any runner bean plant?

Last year as always I grew 8 Red Rum & 8 White Lady in buckets etc. As always the yield was over 100lbs of runner beans on average 6.25lbs per plant.

As can be seen from the pic the plants grow side x side and without weighing them separately there is no seen difference.
Colin

It's true 1.3 Kg sounds pretty poor but that's not unusual for runner beans. Carol Klein in her book 'Grow your own veg' states a yield of 1Kg per plant is normally expected. If only every flower on a runner bean plant set a pod, then the yield would be enormous! Of course, this will never be the case due to competition between pollinated flowers for nutrient resources, which are limiting to yield, and which is one contributory factor to either flower-drop or pod-drop that is so frustratingly common.

I assume your yield you quoted is average yield - an average of 2.84 Kg (6.25 lbs) per plant is brilliant! Well done! I imagine you're south facing and, if that's the case, with that brick wall that they are growing against, they will be nicely sheltered and get plenty of sun for pod-fill. Nice one.

Kind regards
GardeningMike
(horticulturist)

[Potstubsdustbins]

HH, knowing you grow on an allotment I had a word with a gardening buddy today who also grows on an allotment. His advice for runner beans falls into basically two parts.

First 'bean trench' preparation. He starts in Oct. The trench is dug a good 18" deep, then filled with a layer of folded newspaper about 2" thick. On top of this is a layer of well rotted farm yard manure along with any organic material that comes to hand through the winter. Finally in spring he fills the last 5/6 inches with the soil first dug from the trench which he then walks over several times to firm it. Any surplus is used elsewhere on the plot.

Second never grow runner beans in the same spot two years running. As always keep them well watered.

He tells me this is the prefered method of most of the old hands on his site. And by the way he tells me my yield is and I quote 'nowt to write home about'

Colin.

[GardeningMike]

HH, knowing you grow on an allotment I had a word with a gardening buddy today who also grows on an allotment. His advice for runner beans falls into basically two parts.

First 'bean trench' preparation. He starts in Oct. The trench is dug a good 18" deep, then filled with a layer of folded newspaper about 2" thick. On top of this is a layer of well rotted farm yard manure along with any organic material that comes to hand through the winter. Finally in spring he fills the last 5/6 inches with the soil first dug from the trench which he then walks over several times to firm it. Any surplus is used elsewhere on the plot.

Second never grow runner beans in the same spot two years running. As always keep them well watered.

He tells me this is the prefered method of most of the old hands on his site. And by the way he tells me my yield is and I quote 'nowt to write home about'

Colin.

It would appear that bean trenches are a waste of time (see a good recent feature on Runner beans in GYO magazine - May issue I think). Runner beans seem to profit most when the added organic matter is distributed evenly throughout the soil and not just left at the bottom of a trench. With beans, and this is counter-intuitive from the perspective of crop rotation and reducing the incidence of disease, they seem to thrive being grown year after year on the same patch, starting with of course with fresh seed-grown plants each year - this seems to be due to a build up of Rhizobium in the soil, the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in a symbiotic association with the bean roots and contribute the plants nitrogen budget.

GardeningMike

[Two_Sheds]

It would appear that bean trenches are a waste of time

That's good to know: I've never bothered with bean trenches. What I did get great results from though was growing one wigwam of beans in the (raked flat) contents of a dalek: this extra humus was brilliant at soaking up water.
I leave compost as a mulch, I never dig it in (worms prefer to do that for themselves and it saves me a job)

[taff]

I succumbed and dug a trench last year. I couldn't keep up with picking the beans to eat fresh, despite giving them away to everyone, and had to leave them to dry on the stakes. I ended up with half a carrier bag of bean seeds....I'll grow less this year

[Potstubsdustbins]

I don't personally use the trench method it would be very awkward in buckets. However having seen my mates runner bean rows for many a year he must be doing something right as his yield is very similar to my own.

Colin

[GardeningMike]

White lady - bought from T&M with a voucher a few months ago - none germinated

Moonlight - both with swaps and new seeds bought a few months ago - none germinated

Old HSL seeds - 6 years old and found in a box last year - germinated.

I know which I'm growing this year!

The germination of runner bean seeds is in general pretty dodgy past 3 years (steep decline in seed germination beyond this). However, a contact at Tozer told me that seed up to 3 years old is sold by seed companies, which maybe might explain why sometimes success with different seed lots can be very variable. As for T&M, ha ha - I remember in return for quoting their name (as the source of the seed I used) in a gardening article I published, they sent me free seeds but none of them germinated! Beware of freebies...

GardeningMike

[Matt94]

Just a thought Matt have you checked the most obvious culprits for pole beans at least?

1: Lack of water will cause them to drop their flowers without a pod (was my problem at home last year i think)
2: What kind of plant feed are you using if any? Try a tomato feed as you might have too high a ratio of nitrogen and it's putting on greenery instead of pods.
3: Is it very windy?, can make it harder for insects in windy conditions to spread the love and harder for the beans to grow.
4: Full Sun, frenchies love the sun and they can grow without it full on but reduced growth and yields like most other plants.

Last point although some people may not be convinced, pinch out the growing tip when it reaches the top of your frame

I blame points 1 and 4 for my problems last year at home and I am sure some other people might point out things I missed or might not be correct, I am going on what I read from here and experienced myself.

Hi jamesy uk, i watered them every day, i fed them with tom feed, as i recall it wasn't too windy last summer and they where placed in full sun, yet i only got a couple of beans per plant, - so i haven't got a clue what went wrong?, oh well im growing some more this year - so i'll see how they go

[Two_Sheds]

Matt, how far apart were they planted?

[Matt94]

ooh id say around 6 - 8 inches apart - which is the recommended spacing isn't it? - how close can you plant them?

[Two_Sheds]

I do mine 9" apart, but others do them closer. So no ~ no idea why yours didn't grow for you