This year, my French beans have been knobbly and heavily marked or some are just pale green. They don't have any substance to them either. When you press them between your fingers, they aren't solid. There have only been a few that have been 'normal'.

Can anybody suggest what the problem is.

Many thanks in advance.

The knobbliness is through leaving them a bit late before picking - the beans inside are swelling. The marks look like pest damage, and you've also got small holes in the leaves which support that hypothesis.

I'm not sure what you mean by "aren't solid". If you mean they're flabby, that's because the plant has given up on that particular pod for some reason, and is leaving it to die.

Thank you for the response. I think you are right although some of the beans were still small when this happened. Have you any idea on what kind of pest my beans have? Most of the bean pods weren't straight either. Tendency to curl up from early on. The beans were not flabby as such, more like 'empty' when squeezed between fingers as if they had dried up inside.

On 07/09/2012 10:59, Lintama wrote:
This year, my French beans have been knobbly and heavily marked or some
are just pale green. They don't have any substance to them either. When
you press them between your fingers, they aren't solid. There have only
been a few that have been 'normal'.

Can anybody suggest what the problem is.

Many thanks in advance.


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I'd say part of the problem is poor pollination, and something is saying
a brief attack of mildew when the beans were forming.

Incomplete pollination? No beans in spaces that were meant for beans?
Curling up isn't a problem, but if it was very pronounced I wonder if it was another effect of pest damage? No idea about pests. The only things that I have to worry about are red spider and whitefly, and that's because I grow them in the greenhouse to keep them away from the slugs. I wouldn't expect either to be a problem outside.