Hi Drew. There are a lot of GW threads on this with a lot of information. Basically, when pods change color and get rubbery, seeds are fully mature. If possible, let pods dry on the vine. If frost or excessive rain threaten, pick the pods and dry them in a warm place with a fan or good air circulation. When pods are dry, shell them and let the beans further dry in a warm dry place on a paper plate or in an open paper bag. I put them in a plastic bags about the end of the year. At that time they can be frozen for 48 hours to kill bug eggs. Store them in a cool place. They can be stored in a freezer in at least two layers of Zip Lock freezer bags.

I know broccoli make side shoots. I was saying it was silly the way they wrote. You can't cut broccoli heads and expect seeds. Of course if you don't cut the side shoots for eating, you can save seed. It doesn't matter to the plant which heads the seeds came from. The plant is making side shoots in an attempt flower and make seeds. You won't get as many seeds since the smaller heads will make less seed. Smaller heads of broccoli from a group of plants for seed saving will attract insects. So you do need a group of plants still. Broccoli is a shorter season crop so it is not like beans where harvesting most of the beans to eat and then leaving some to mature at the end of the season can be risky. Unless of course you are growing it as a fall crop in a cold area and you are not giving the plant enough time to develop side shoots and mature before winter, but you are in zone 9 so that is not a problem. Remy

How many plants you need to save depends upon several factors... the variety, soil fertility, hours of full sun per day, and plant spacing are some of the most important. Spaced 6-12" apart, in full sun, you can expect 50-100 seeds per plant from most varieties; in fertile soil, better than that. Subtract from that if plants are shaded or planted more closely, and account for the fact that bad weather can cause losses if the dry & near-dry beans sprout or mold. 5-6 plants of each, properly spaced, should produce the amount of seed you intend to save.

"If what stated in the other thread is true, then would the shell beans have higher production if picked as snap beans?" In my experience, if you are referring to beans grown for shellies, probably not. Most of the shell beans I've grown have fewer pods than varieties bred for use as snaps. There are exceptions, such as Goose (Ma Williams) and Brita's Foot Long, which have pretty good yields either way. For seed saving, my recommendation would depend upon your reason(s) for saving seed... but as a rule, I prefer saving from multiple plants, vice letting a single plant go completely to seed. Beans don't as a rule have a great deal of genetic diversity, but multiple plants helps to preserve more of whatever diversity might be present. It is also good policy to never "put all of your eggs in one basket", so to speak; if that plant becomes diseased or is destroyed by animals, you have lost everything. If you only want enough seed to replant for your personal use, then just let a few pods ripen on each plant. I've done this with yardlong beans, and they were still going strong when I harvested the dry pods. If you intend to trade, or want larger quantities of seed, you might need to let several plants go to seed. With yardlongs, provided your season is long enough, you can harvest immature pods for several weeks, then let the plants go for seed. This can give you a large seed yield, since the plants will have grown larger during the harvest period, and can now support more pods to maturity. I did this one year with my shortest DTM yardlong (a black-seeded variety) and collected over a pound of dry seed. With yardlongs, because the period from flower to dry is so short, you can have your cake, and eat it too. ;-) For beans other than yardlongs, the pick-then-let-go method might not be successful, since the period from flower to dry tends to be longer - sometimes much longer. In particular, snap beans bred to stay tender (such as Fortex and Emerite) can take a very long time to mature. If you harvest snaps for several weeks, the beans let go after that might not have time to mature before frost (spoken from experience). So in short-season areas, I would recommend letting the first few pods on each plant go for seed, then harvesting the remainder. Those first few pods are also far less likely to be crossed, since the plants are not yet flowering heavily enough to attract pollinators in large numbers.