Resowing Runner Bean Seeds

[hairygrape]

A friend of mine keeps saving dried seeds from his annual runner bean crop and sows them again the following year.

This year, his fifth year in a row, his plants and pods are pathetic with very few beans having formed.

I tried to tell him not to do this a few years back, but he wouldn't listen.

I'd like to know what exactly is happening here each year when he resows the seeds. I realise the plants are getting progressively weaker but why? Is there a scientific name for this phenomenon so that I can look further into it on the web?

Thanks very much.

[Hawkwalk]

http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/envirohort/f actsheets2/landsnurs/jul91pr4.html

this may help explain more if he was using F1 seed to start with. Each year the new seed will be further away from the original parents used to produce the F1 so they will become weaker.

[amonty1144]

My father who was an old fashioned type of gardener, learnt it by doing it, not from a book and sadly deceased. told me many years ago that nothing will every come true from F1 seed, he even beleieved that things like pansies would never self set as the seed became sterile. Don't know how true it is but he would never keep seed.

[hairygrape]

Thank you both.

I realise the problems with F1 seed, but I think that my neighbour is using bog-standard seed.

I'm wondering if there's a scientific reason for the progressively poor vigour of the seeds he's planting under these circumstances

[Hawkwalk]

perhaps its to do with the soil. Is he rotating the crop, does he prepare the soil correctly, is it well fertilised? there could be many reasons for poor growth.

[Figi]

I've saved runner bean seeds and French bean seeds for years and never had any problems.