Abstract: Experiments showed that the nuaber of pods borne by the individual yardtong bean plant was an important agronomic character determining its output,and the weight of the pods borne on the main vine of the yard long bean accounted for 70-90 per cent of the total output of the whole plant;the other 10-30 per cent coming from the lateral vines.Moreover,the weight of the pod flesh constituted over 80 per cent of the weight of the pod.Analyses showed that the length of the pod decide determined its protein content level.The longer the pod,the higher the protein level.That the heritability of the pod length in the broad sense came up to as 93.6 per cent showed that it was not easily influenced by environmental cinditions but easy to fix in progenies,easy to measure with the eye and favourable to seed selection.Therefore,when yardtong bean seeds are to be selected for breeding,atten-tion must be paid to select pods from individual plants or plant lines which are able to bear more and longer pods with thick flesh to provide seeds for propagating progenies,and so as to raise the output and protein content of the pod and to facilitate the breeding of new varieties with high yield and superior quality.