I have and often grow both...the bush beans come in much faster but the pole beans are my preference...Much easier to deal with, and much easier to pick. I think they out produce and last much longer...so pole bean would be my choice.

It must depend on where you live... I grow both each year (I've tried several varieties of each) and the bush beans always outdo the poles every year here in Sacramento. I rarely get even a few meals out of the pole beans, but my kids are usually tired of the bush beans by the end of the season because they produce so early and so abundantly...

Mike

Mike's right; it must depend on where you live. When I lived and gardened in MN the bush beans out produced pole easily but here in Texas my pole beans produce more and over a longer period. I grow both tho because it seems to me the pole beans have a 'beanier' flavor and they're fun to grow.

You asked about spacing and hog panels. I use 8' tall tepees and the beans out grow them. Hog or cattle panels are usually 5'x16' when I buy them, so yes you can grow them on the panels but they'll grow over them and start hanging over. Not a big deal and you'll still get beans. Plant the seed 4-6" apart along your panels.

The coolest cattle panel bean trellis I saw this year was a 16' long panel bent to an arch with the ends staked into a garden bed and arched up about 7'. They planted beans along the ends, they grew up and over the arch creating a green tunnel. You just walked into the tunnel and picked tons of beans. I might try that next year.

That would be very neat to curve the panels.
I will just have to try some good pole beans and see how they perform to bush. I was hoping to hear that pole beans would outproduce bush.

Pole beans outproduce bush beans 2 to 1 here in Alabama. The further north you go, the less time they have to make a crop, so bush beans may be more productive.

Fusion

Can bush beans used in the "three sisters" type of companion gardening or is that only relegated to pole beans?

Perhaps bush beans could be included in a three sisters planting at the expense of losing ground area normally devoted to the squash. I want a few bush beans too, so I will plant a row along the edge of my three sisters. The main planting will all be pole types.

Jim