There will be enough winter bean seed to meet demand this autumn, so growers shouldn't panic and make hasty buying decisions, Peter Smith of Wherry's said at a recent PGRO open day .

"There's sufficient seed for a 50% increase on this year's area," he confirmed. "But growers are under the impression that seed will be hard to come by. That simply isn't the case."

Steve Blecher of PGRO agreed that there was a misconception about seed supplies. "That may be simply because there's so much interest in winter beans at the moment."

The top selling variety is Wizard, he said. "There are two new ones up for recommendation - Sultan and Husky. They're both smaller seeded than Wizard, but they do have the pale hilum required for the export market."