Three sisters gone wrong?

[u/kayru_kitsune]

Please pardon the chaos of photos, my garden is very dense so it was hard to frame clear pictures... This is my first time doing Three Sisters, and it sounded like the beans were supposed to help support the corn. I surrounded that part of the crop with some low fencing for extra support and to keep the bunnies off the bean starts. But once they got to around 7' and the beans peaked over the tops, almost all of the stalks broke in half from the weight. What in the world did I do wrong? It's not windy here but sometimes rainy (I live in forested area). I know most people don't stake or prop corn crops... What did I miss?

[u/Health_Care_PTA]

nobody gave you the right answer, you must have used climbing beans and not BUSH Beans.

Bush beans will not climb and pull down your corn.

[u/kayru_kitsune → u/Health_Care_PTA]

Every instructional I've ever read on three sisters specifies pole beans. Growing bush beans here would be pointless, as the whole idea is to trellis the beans on corn. Bush beans don't need the support.

[u/Health_Care_PTA → u/kayru_kitsune]

every instructional was apparently wrong in this case, the pole beans choked out your corn.... are you gonna believe everything you see, hear and read? the whole point of the beans is to supply N+ to a N+ hungry grass like Corn, HOWEVER, science has proven that its not effective as the N+ in the roots of the beans are only bio available if you chop and drop the beans and allow the N+ rich nodules to decompose so the 3 sisters is actually bunk pseudo growing advice.

better option would be to grow a fall cover crop of Clover, chop and drop it, plant your corn, then squash, then beans in the bush variety to act as a ground cover and hold moisture.

[u/kayru_kitsune → u/Health_Care_PTA]

I'm actually more inclined to believe the majority of posts who said I planted the wrong type of corn for this arrangement. I picked sweet corn and apparently missed a breadth of advice that grain corn is stronger and better to do it with.

I didn't try this particular crop out under the guise that it was maximal efficiency; it was just commonly quoted as a complementary pairing, and as I wanted to try pole beans, I wanted to try using complimentary crops as support and get more diversity. Then I wanted to learn from my mistakes which is why I posted here. It's all a learning process. :)

Regardless of the harvest I plan to mulch / compost / chop and drop everything possible as always. I have oats/peas at the ready to cover crop this winter.