Runner beans bred for eating pods?

[Diane Whitehead]

I've been reading an earlier thread from 2018:  Hybrid Beans started by Joseph Lofthouse.

Moonlight:  The world's first self-pollinating white flowered runner bean - sets well even in poor conditions The original French/Runner bean cross variety introduced in 2011

[Professor Porcupine]

One person said that she found runner beans pods to get tough quickly, so not very suitable for eating fresh pods.

Is this true of all runner beans, or do some coccineus retain soft, edible pods longer in the season?

I think exactly "How tender" you pick them makes the biggest differnece. If picked tender enough, any species of Phaseolus will make good green beans.

There are also many dual-purpose Runnerbeans cultivars with good edible pods & mature seeds.
Also no variety is truly stringless, just some are less stringy than others.

With runnerbeans that are picked more mature, you can peel the string side with a vegetable peeler.

[Carol Deppe]

Some Runner Bean varieties have been bred for edible pods and some for seeds.

British plant breeders have done a lot of work developing runner beans for the pods.

Adaptive Seeds has bred and sells an OSSI-Pledged variety 'British Pop', which is an interbreeding gene pool population started with all British varieties bred for the pods.