I can understand that water requirements would probably do that, but as of late, I noticed that some small beans on one plant weren`t doing well while the rest of the beans on the same plant were fine.

Anyone know why this happens?

What's worse is that I'm afraid to leave the rest of the pods on the plant to dry (for shelling).

I planted bush beans all over my lawn, in diff areas of sun and in a protected flower box. The first two in the box grew the best and fasted, but nothing else has done well. I pruned the two star growers after their first yield, and second round hasn't been great.

Many have had stunted growth, though it is supposed to be a fast growing variety. The tiny pods have gotten dark and shriveled - seemed like they weren't getting enough water, but not sure about that now... Other pods have grown but stayed very light yellow with hard, plump seeds inside. I tried to wait for them to change color, but they were already plump, as if going to seed. When I harvested one of them, the seeds inside were still white, but didn't look good for replanting.

I've never heard of trimming down beans for a second crop. Did any of your plants regrow? Usually I'll just replant the beans themselves.

I was growing them to eat, bc I had such a large amount of seeds. I let some go to seed, moreso as an experiment or accident - I forgot - by leaving them on the plant longer. Sure enough, they got plumper and felt really hard, and the seeds inside looked like what was in the purchased packet.

The yellow beans seemed to grow in yellow. If they started out green, they changed colors very quickly. I thought they normally went from light to dark?

Is the yellow color a deformity due to poor conditions in soil, cool temps, or overwatering? I thought it was the same thing as having yellow leaves.

OR, are the yellow ones just as good to eat? I haven't tried them.

RE: cutting them down

I read online that you can trim back the leaves from bush beans, after your first harvest, and you may get a second harvest before they stop producing.

As an experiment, with my first pair of decently producing plants, I left the leaves on Plant A and pruned from Plant B after picking. Plant B produced some more.

Then I pruned Plant A, maybe a week later, and it also grew some more beans, but not as many as Plant B.

By "successful", these each grew about 5 in their first harvest. Much less than I was expecting! hehe.

The lesser performing plants, with a few hours less of sun, produced maybe 3 beans each. After pruning those, maybe 1 or 2 but stunted, tiny or large yellow beans.

Yellowing of the leaves is okay in my understanding. It's a signal that the plants are done producing new growth/pods. I'm leaving the rest of my pods on the plant until the entire bush turns yellow in the hopes that the beans will plump with nutrients.

I have seen several factors result in bean plants aborting young pods.

If beans have been left on the plant to develop seed, the plant will begin to abort younger pods when it reaches the maximum number of pods that it can grow to maturity (maximum pod load). It appears that the growing seeds need to reach a certain stage of maturity before the youngest pods get "cut off", and flowering stops. Since I save a lot of bean seed, I see this process quite often as the pods begin to fatten up... and it is probably the reason for most of the shriveling described in this thread.

The same thing happens here sometimes after the plants have been kissed by a light frost... the plant puts all of its energy into ripening the pods which are most developed, at the expense of younger pods. I see this most often in lima beans (all of the young pods dropped from my vines last week) but the smallest snaps will shrivel too if there was extensive frost damage.

Occasionally I have seen dry, rubbery pods appear on snap beans after they have been harvested for some time, at the end of the flush. My assumption is that this behavior represents a shift by the plant into a growth phase, since it is usually followed by the appearance of new shoots.

I didn't know that beans pollinated themselves! Is this action through the wind, or gravity, or...?

These are Arikara yellow beans. Notice the one shriveled pod which was probably the youngest with fewest beans, but also notice the very healthy and robust pods that are completely filled.

It is good to see that I am not the only one having this problem.
Thanks folks for the additional opinions expressed beyond what I had thought about.

:)

Persimmons, your beans have a good pod set, which is the reason new pods stopped forming. Looks like they are close to maturity.

When beans are let go for seed, the leaves too tend to yellow & fall off as the pods get close to maturity. I've noticed though that if the pods are picked in the shelly stage (before they dry) that the plants will sometimes begin putting out new leaves & flowers. This seldom happens if the pods dry on the plant.