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Gardening

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Can anyone identify this crop?

12 replies

SoupDragon · 28/05/2015 20:28

Out for a dog walk and there were fields and fields of a crop I don't recognise and I'd like to find out what it was to satisfy my curiosity! I've had a short Google but really have nowhere to start from.

Can anyone identify this crop?
OP posts:
Scaredandanxious · 28/05/2015 20:29

Broad beans :)

TulipsAndSwifts · 28/05/2015 20:29

I think they are broad beans.

SoupDragon · 28/05/2015 20:46

I don't think I've ever seen them growing, even though I'm sur my parents grew them when I was growing up. Don't they need poles like runner beans then?

I knew MN would know the answer. Thanks :)

OP posts:
Ferguson · 28/05/2015 22:29

No, they don't need any support, though I think the tips are stopped after a while, to bush them out and also discourage aphids which can invade them.

SoupDragon · 28/05/2015 22:31

Every day is a school day :)

OP posts:
Elliptic5 · 28/05/2015 22:37

Broad beans - I've been growing them for years. I use string around the rows as support as it's quite windy here, and pinch the tops out when they are about 80 cm tall. I usually eat the tops as you can cook them like spinach, then I get loads of beans and freeze about half of them for the winter.

springsprang · 28/05/2015 22:45

Field beans, variety slightly different from garden broad beans, stay on the plant until October ish when the dried beans are harvested with a combine. Used for animal feed and human consumption. There are more of them in the ground this year due to a change in farming subsidies requiring a bigger range of crops than some farmers were growing, plus an additional 'environmental' tick box.

MrsJackAubrey · 28/05/2015 22:46

i'm with Springsprang on this one, definitely

AlternativeTentacles · 28/05/2015 22:51

Field beans. Used for fodder.

Although they look just like broadies, we dont eat broadies in the uk on that scale.

Elliptic5 · 28/05/2015 22:52

Yes, I would agree the ones in farm fields are usually the field bean variety. Round here they are sometimes left in the fields and then ploughed in, I guess the farmers still receive their "brownie points".

TheWintersmith · 28/05/2015 22:53

Fields beans

Cow food

wowfudge · 29/05/2015 16:05

They fix nitrogen into the soil Elliptic.

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