Different colored flowers does indicate that you probably have an outcross. Do you save seed from some of your Prelude beans? Let the two plants with the purple flowers go to seed and compare the seed to your Prelude variety. It's still possible that the purple flowered beans will have the same seed coat as your Prelude. Regrowing the seed from your purple flowered beans might give you a different seed coat next year.
Thank you for answering! This happened in the bed that was meant for eating, but now i want to save the seeds from the purple flowered plants. I've put some coloured rope on these plants so i can still recognise them after flowering. And i will save every seed from these two plants. Only problem is that i saw some damage to some of the beans in this bed, one bean was half eaten! Probably mice or some other small rodent, but not really sure. We don't have rabbits where i live.
What do the seeds of the Prelude variety look like, and do you save seed of those?
Also when you replant your new outcross seed next year the genes will sort out and you can get more combinations of seed coat colors and also characteristics of your plants.
The Prelude seeds are plain white and yes i save those every year. This is the 3rd year growing them.
I do wonder if they will change coat colour or stay white!
I have another thing going on with my broad beans. I grow them also for 3 years in a row. They are supposed to "Crimson Flowered", Green beans and well crimson coloured flowers.
However since year one I also get white flowers. And on top op that 3 kinds of beans. The regular green ones, nice purple ones and small brown ones! So I really need to sort out what is what with this lot. And this year I noticed that even the small brown ones give some purple beans !!
Your Prelude if a stable variety should give you the same white seed coat every time you grow them. Did you get the Prelude seed from another gardener or buy them from a seed company.
If a couple of your Prelude seeds are outcrossed. The beans must have been grown around another variety sometime.
@Bluejay77
I bought the Prelude seeds from a seed company. The broad beans I got from another gardener.
There were other kinds of beans growing in my garden last year, but there was some distance between them. Not in the same row and I don't think even in the next row.
I got way plenty of Burgandy Bolita seeds to save for next year and send back. Not quite enough Crystal Wax as the majority of them are BLACK! I'm calling them, for lack of a better idea Crystal Black. Most of the vines are making the white seeds but the white seeded ones are far less productive. Don't think they like the heat, a couple have even died but should still get plenty to return to the network.
Got lots and lots of Refugee, enough so that I'm strongly considering planting a second crop in next couple days. They were short season enough I might get by with it and we really liked them as a snap bean. Also have a single vine among the Refugee that is longer season and larger vine, haven't looked at it's seeds yet.
Does this forum allow direct upload of pictures? I know there is a button for it but on another forum I'm on it is full and you can't use it.
You should be able to post photos, some of us have posted a lot over the years. There should not be any limits. I don't know where your photos are stored. Mine are on my hard drive. With this new forum platform I go to "upload a file" at the bottom and double click on the file I want to upload.
I tried a couple of this year's outcrosses as green beans last night. I tossed a pod in my regular green beans when I was cooking them but did not break the bean so I could identify it. Last year my Miss T was a string bean and not good as a green bean, too tough. This year my Miss T #1 is stringless and makes a good green bean. I have other Miss T's growing out, some pole and some bush, so it's still segregating.
I also tried Jas #1. I did not try it last year so I don't know what it was like. But Jas also was stringless and made a good tasting green bean. I only try them if production is good enough I'm comfortable I'll get plenty of seeds from that plant.