broad beans: low yield

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OpenField
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Dear all,

As you can see in the photos, around 3/4 of the stem is fruitless (the flowers were there, but they never fructified), in addition you can observe a lot of rhizobia nodules in the root photo which I assume they happen because of a very low Nitrogen content in the soil, which would explain the low yield, but I am not sure since the plant looks crisp and healthy. Do you have any advice?

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jack oostenbrink
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I don't have a lot of experience with broad beans but that plant looks great! I would suggest that the reason you didn't get fruit is more likely related to lack of pollination on the flowers. The activity around the roots is normal for nitrogen fixing legumes.
OpenField
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Indeed, I forgot the most obvious reason: lack of polinization.

Broad beans are also a pain if you have an ant nest close by, ants love to transport (and take care of) aphids on the plants. They also transmit a black rot disease. This year I was fast on locating the ant nest and I did destroy it, thats why the broad beans look so healthy... but polinization prob. failed as you mentioned.
PeasIntheRain
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I had a bit of this as well this year. The broad beans did the best that they ever had... but still only about 4 to 5 sizeable pods per plant. The plants were not quite a meter tall and many much shorter, giving up the ghost early.

I'm trying to be satisfied given that they did better than last year (so soil must be improving) and this year's weather was tough for gardening almost all round, but it's hard not to compare with the broad beans I've seen in other gardens elsewhere that were taller than me and produced new pods for an extended period...

My improvement this year was in taking the pods as soon as the colour changed (mostly black), allowing me to catch the ripe seeds before they sprouted or spoiled as the autumn rains start in again. Just set them to dry on newspaper as they trickle in when ready.
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