Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: hubballi on June 24, 2012, 11:07

Title: Broad bean flowers falling
Post by: hubballi on June 24, 2012, 11:07

I have healthy broad bean plants with some flowers and some pods forming but I have noticed a lot of stalks where the flowers once were but no pods forming. As if they have fallen  off. Is there a reason for this ?

Title: Re: Broad bean flowers falling
Post by: LilacSandy on June 24, 2012, 11:13

Hi Hubballi,

My plants are exactly the same, I am sure that the cold weather is to blame.  All the new flowers look good and now pods are forming.

Title: Re: Broad bean flowers falling
Post by: hubballi on June 24, 2012, 11:21

I was kind of hoping that's what would be causing it.

Title: Re: Broad bean flowers falling
Post by: Salmo on June 24, 2012, 11:28

I have the same thing. Beans full of flowers but few pods. The pods that have formed feel to only have a few beans inside.

The flowers need to be pollinated if they are to produce pods. If they are not pollinated the flowers drop off. With so many cold and wet days the pollinating insects are just not active.

Although beans are partly self pollinated I wonder if the temperatures have also been too low for this to happen. Hopefully the flowers further up the stems will fare better