the bush beans do not flop any more than round or oval bush beans. Jumbo is a special case. It is a cross that tastes more like an old fashioned pole bean than a Roma type. It has huge long pods like a pole bean and does tend to flop. Outstanding flavor tho. The pole types like Romano,Helda, Musica are better than the bush Roma II, Pension. None of them seem to do as well in the south as the regular beans.

farmerdill, thanks for the reply. It sounds like you've done a lot of varietal experiments. When you say the pole types are better than the bush types do you mean better flavor?

My limited experience with beans is that every pole type (including the locally common "half runners") have great flavor in comparison to the regular bush types, but they're all stringy. The flat type bush beans are the best compromise I've found in good flavor (like in the pole types) but stringlessness (like the regular bush types). I still grow half runners and regular pole beans for flavor, but the strings limit my interest in them.

Yes, much better flavor. Some the more modern varieties like Northeaster are stringless. I have not had any stringiness problems with half runners like Volunteer, State etc tho when harvested before they get too beany. I have not gotten satisfactory performance from Roma II. Jumbo is outstanding but is not a true Roma/Romano type.

I like my brown-seeded Romano bush bean Yer Fasulyasi, an heirloom, and also black-seeded Marconi Nano, both very meaty and keep making beans long into the season. White-seeded Capitano was also good but not as prolific.