Never grown that variety so can't comment on their normal coloring. But purpling of leaves like that usually means a phosphorous deficiency of some kind. That would be unusual in legumes as they normally require little in the way of nutrient supplements unless the soil pH is out of whack.

In fact beans seldom need fertilization of any kind. so you may be over-fertilizing them. Don't know much about Texas Tomato Food's nutrient ratings except that it is considered quite high in K and is commonly used in hydroponics. But if it is for tomatoes then it may well be that the excess N and other nutrients in it - beans aren't really tolerant of N fertilizers - are interfering with the phos uptake in some fashion.

Just something to consider.

Dave

ETA: Looked up the bean and the photos show very dark green leaves. Given the yellowish cast to some of the leaves in the photo is it possible you are over-watering them? Overly wet roots would also have phos uptake issues.

Dave - The current TTF formula is 4.0-2.5-7.0. I am using it this year for the first time and so far I am impressed with the results. I've been using it on toms, peppers, cukes, and squash and getting better yields than ever. I've never fertilized beans before.

7.0 is high K. Shouldn't pose a problem for tomatoes but not sure about beans. High K can bind up phos depending on soil pH. Same here, I never fertilize beans with anything.

Dave

I doubt they're being watered too much. I've been doing some beet and carrot plantings in various spots in the bed, and was actually surprised at how dry some areas were. I'll check the spot by the beans later.

I swear I've looked at info and images online for hours about this. I do one search now and I see multiple images that look like mine! One is even the same type of bean!

This person says nutrient deficiency, likely iron, nitrogen and/or manganese: https://plantsondeck.com/tag/bean-nutrient-deficiencies/

This person attributes it to a phosphorous deficiency (the bean leaves photo is towards the bottom): http://gardenrealm.net/blog/2015/05/the-case-of-phosphorus-deficient-soil/

I'll do NPK/pH tests tonight!

It's odd that the ones I planted in the ground are showing early symptoms of the same thing though... maybe I'm wrong about that. The raised bed is filled with some "worm dirt topsoil" from a landscaping company, and the ground here is some awful clay.

So I did two rounds of tests using different soil samples for each round. I used Luster Leaf 1601 Rapitest Soil Test Kit. Both came back as:

pH: around 6.5

N: depleted

P: adequate

K: depleted

I'm really surprised that N and K are totally depleted. Should I send a sample out to get tested?

"Should I send a sample out to get tested?"

If you want accurate results, yes. Home test kits are notoriously inaccurate and very misleading in many cases.

Dave

N rises and falls naturally as soil organics degrade. Whether your own test or a professional test, I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to the N value in the analysis. But yes, purplish leaves often indicates phosphorous deficiency in the plants. Whether you have soil that is deficient in phosphorus, or something that is preventing its uptake by the plants is another matter. Looks like pH isn't a problem in that regard.

Phosphorous isn't that mobile in soil, so one would think that if you're having a problem with it this year, you had problems with it in previous years. That being said, you might also consider Anthracnose, which can cause red/purplish stains.

Yeah, it looks like most soil tests don’t measure for nitrogen since it fluctuates too much. I’m going to send a sample into MSU to check on everything else though.

The raised bed was just built this year, so I don't have anything to compare with.

Another thing I’ve found that looks similar is ozone exposure.

http://www.ozoneinjury.org/crops/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=35

And from another site, this describes it perfectly: “Ozone-induced symptoms as observed on most common bean varieties are exhibited as a typical upper-leaf stipple with the veins remaining free of any symptoms. At first, stippling is usually light brown in color but then becomes darker shades of brown and even takes on a purple hue. Older leaves show the symptoms first with affected leaves also becoming yellow (chlorosis); the more sensitive varieties may suffer defoliation of the oldest leaves soon after late season, severe ozone episodes.”

https://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/ozonegarden/detect-symptoms.php

You would think the scarlet runner beans I have growing right by these other beans would also show symptoms if it was a nutrient deficiency, but they seem to be doing fine. Maybe they’re a little bit too light green? I don't know, I'm very new to this.

And the darkening is progressing VERY fast. You can see how dark the leaves are in this compared to the original ones I posted. The lower leaves have all died off, although this picture doesn't show that.

Wow, where do you live that you see ozone damage? Most ground level ozone is from fuel combustion. Got a busy highway nearby? You'd think your runner beans would suffer from ozone similarly.

I'm about 20 min west of Cleveland, Ohio. I live in a very low traffic neighborhood, but I'm half a mile from a highway. I'm in one of the red zones in this map!

Seasonal mean of ambient ozone concentrations between 09:00 and 16:00 h over the continental United States from 1 July to 31 September 2005 (Tong et al. 2007Atmos. Environ. 41:8772). Areas shown in brown, orange and red can experience significant crop yield loss and damage to ecosystem function from ambient ozone.

I read up quite a bit on this yesterday, and it seems like some plants/varieties are a lot more sensitive than others... so it could be that the Blauhilde beans are sensitive and the scarlet runners aren't.

Turns out that OSU let's you submit photos through an app to diagnose pests, diseases, etc. If they can't diagnose through that, you can just send samples in like normal. I might give that a try!

Interesting analysis. It would be useful to learn more about this. Not quite clear what produced ground-level ozone hot spots in your map in southern Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Utah. The EPA came up with a somewhat different map that is much more concentrated towards urban areas. According to this map, one might conclude that it's impossible to grow beans in urban areas.