Big beans or little beans?

[veggiechicken]

Next daft question You must excuse me, its raining, and I'm playing with seeds!

When sowing runner beans, (especially ones you've saved) do you sow the biggest ones or the smallest ones. Or any bean that comes to hand?

If you sow the biggest beans, would you expect them to produce bigger pods/beans/plants than the smaller ones?

Just curious because I have loads of saved beans and I'll never be able to sow them all

[Bren In Pots]

I just sow any so long as they aren't damaged or have holes.

[Penellype]

I would expect the bigger ones to produce better plants overall. The seed is the plant's food until it is big enough to make its own, so a bigger seed should give the plant a better, stronger start in life. The small ones should still be viable though, and sometimes applying theoretical logic to living things does not work out in practise. I have not actually tried comparing plants based on seed size.

[Guest]

I try and plant a mix in the belief of diversity

[Bigmallly]

Just gerrum bunged in & stop faffing about..................

[Snadger]

If the beans written information states 'Seven beans to a pod and pod length X" these are the beans you should be using for seed as long as the parent plant is fruitful and all beans are a similar length. These beans should all be the same size and would be used for this years plants. If you have big' uns and little' uns you are deviating from what the type should be methinks?

[veggiechicken]

May I thank you all for your helpful advice
The beans in question are a random bag of beans I must have saved years ago. No idea what they were It was just while I was playing with them that I noticed the difference in size, and my little brain cell wanted to understand more

[Penellype]

I suppose its quite fitting that you seem to have got a fairly random bag of answers for your random bag of beans

[veggiechicken]

Random answers are the norm here

[Alison]

Doesn't it depend what you're growing them for ie big ones for eating the bean seeds but smaller ones for fresh ones?

[vixylix]

Another challenge for you VC! I hope you're keeping a list - maybe we need a 'challenges for 2016' thread!

[veggiechicken]

I'm one step ahead of you Vixy http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ads_87648.html

[Potstubsdustbins]

You know what they say 'A good big un beats a good little un every time'. Oh that's .............. boxing