Topic: Runner Beans - hazel poles or bamboo canes?

[lavenderlux]

This year I have had two rows, each about eight foot long, of runner beans, the first were grown up hazel poles and the second lot up bamboo canes.  The plants grown on hazel poles have far out performed those grown on bamboo canes, I am still picking from this row and there is still lots of flower; all the seed was from the same packet.  The ones on hazel were planted out as young plants mid May and started cropping by the third week of June, the other row was also young plants and planted out early June.   The only other difference is that in the earliest row I have also grown some 'morning glory' plants which the bees seem to like - so do runner beans do best on hazel poles compared to bamboo canes?

[squeezyjohn]

My head says that the type of pole used can't have any serious effect on the plant growing up it ... but you never know - you may have stumbled upon something!

My guess would be that the soil in the two patches are different - or it is a result of when you planted them out.  Call me a cynic!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Try reversing the positions of the hazel and bamboo poles next year; if the ones gown up hazel do better again, you'll know it's that. I've grown beans on both, and never noticed any difference.

[Ian Pearson]

Better pollination because the morning glory attracted more insects? Or the human factor; if you pick harder, the plants will produce for longer. Perhaps once you started to think one planting was better than the other, you harvested it more, leading to longer cropping.

[winecap]

Although you used the same batch of seed, you should also consider whether the plants put out later were identical to those in the first sowing. I think that any setback for the young plant can affect the overall performance. If these went out in the really hot weather ( was that June?) they may never have got their roots down as deep. Looks like you may have to repeat the experiment with a single batch of plants.

[Paulines7]

On the subject of runners, mine only started producing beans about two weeks ago and I am getting plenty from them.  I was late putting them into the ground and they spent several weeks in polystyrene boxes beforehand.  I sowed them in the boxes in early May!  They didn't like being moved very much and took a long time to get settled in their new home, but I am really reaping the rewards now and have far more than I can cope with and they are not at all stringy.  They are "Moonlight"and grow up netting attached to bamboo canes which are then tied into a 10ft chicken wire fence. 

[Digeroo]

They are reputed to prefer hazel poles.  But they are difficult to source and expensive compared to canes and are more difficult to dig in and keep upright.

[lavenderlux]

Thank you for your replies;  the runner beans I planted out in early June had been better looked after than the earlier batch and the soil they went into had been dug deeper so they ought to have been the better performers.  My seeds were from a mixed packet of red, white and pink flowered beans.
On our site we planted some hazel saplings in 2005 specifically to be grown for pea sticks and bean poles.   It takes around six years for the hazel to get to the size for first cutting of pea sticks and you can then cut it every other year so our hazel is divided into two areas which we cut in alternative years for pea sticks.  We also have an area of mature hazel which was planted in 1996 and we thin this out for bean poles - for both, however, there is more demand than supply but we have no further space for more hazel to be grown.