Both Fortex & Emerite are considered to be pole filet beans... but IMO it would be a waste to use them that way. A question of taste, I suppose. I believe most gardeners use them as regular snap beans, for which they are both outstanding. I grow one or the other every year, and freeze large amounts for the winter.

Fortex is longer, sweeter, and the better of the two for eating raw. If you like to give away beans to others, they will really enjoy Fortex. My only complaint about Fortex is that the long, tender young pods are very susceptible to wind bruising; so if possible, they should be grown downwind from something which blocks the wind (like on the south side of a wall or fence).

Emerite is shorter but straighter, firmer, and less sweet. It is a good choice for canning, and outstanding for making pickled dilly beans, due to the straight pods & firm texture.

Both varieties are excellent snap beans, have better than average cool-soil germination, and remain stringless even when fairly large. The vines are not as rampant as some of the more vigorous pole beans (such as Kentucky Wonder) so I plant them a little more closely in the row... thinning to 6" apart, or 2 @ 12".

As you say, there are several bush varieties of filet beans, but because I prefer pole beans, I've never tried those, so can't comment on their quality.

My favorite bush filet is Rolande. Very tender, great taste and a heavy producer. I tried growing other beans but you can't beat the taste of haricot verts. My second choice would be Roma-type bush beans for the large, flat, meaty -- but still tender -- pods.

Getting plenty of 'Maxibel' from 6 plants I started early in pots, animals keep eating the leaves of the ones I direct seeded.

Pretty tall plants, consistently around 7" long attractive beans, hard to tell the best time to pick. Look very nice, eat like a bush bean. I don't think they are similar to 'Fortex'

I planted a few Maxibel and Rolande "filet bush" beans a month ago or so. What is odd is that they all are growing long thin vertical vines with few leaves after the plants grew the few sets of leaves. Sort of like a half runner, except the vines are thinner. The earlier Maxibel plants grew a rather tall bush, but the newer plants have 3 foot vines except where the groundhog bit them repeatedly to keep testing them to find out they were not good to eat.

The few Rolande plants are all growing thin vines. Hard to see in the pic, but the Rolande has a long light green vine going diagonal right to left in the upper half, a second visible vine growing up to the left in the lower half. There are pole beans behind them, a planted a few Rolande to see what they were like.

So what is going on with the thin vines? Reaction to heat so reverting to old gene habits?

I don't remember this happening with Maxibell and Rolande, but I've experienced this phenomenon with other bush bean varieties. It's like they made a half-hearted effort to climb and then grew out of it. They ended up getting more bushy and producing well.

But, my "vines" never got that long! Interesting... 🤔