2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[BeanWonderin]

i agree with your evaluation.

i'm assuming these four selections came each from individual plants?

I did not separate the pods by plant when we harvested, so I cannot be certain. But yes - that is my assumption.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh! I thought they produce normal beans without reverses. Someone back in one of the old threads did an experiment. Can't remember who at the moment.

I don't know if you are talking about me. One of the few Will Bonsall crosses I got from Russ that actually stabilized was a bean I called "Jas". I'd typically grow five or so plants each year and would get a total of maybe 3 seeds that were reverses. That was one reverse seed in a pod, the others in the pod looked regular. I don't recall planting a reverse and getting it to maturity. I tried one year and had to replant practically all the beans due to a late cold snap so almost nothing germinated.

One interesting thing about that bean. The pods were typically green with purple stripes. But some pods would be reverses, purple with green stripes. The beans in those reverse pods were not reverses, just regular beans.

It is post #254 in the 2020 network thread. I'll try to copy it below

Jas – Parent bean also Norridgewock from packet WB #39. Jas is a climbing bean, a half-runner around 7 feet tall. The flowers are a beautiful lavender. The 4” to 6” pods are striped. 60 beans weight 46 grams. A decent size. On five plants I grew 365 grams of dried beans. Also a dried bean, not a snap. Something interesting about Jas is that every time I’ve grown it I’ve had a very few reverses. Not many, this year it was only three individual beans. The pods also can grow reverse. The pods are typically green with purple stripes but a few pods are purple with green stripes.

Jas Beans with two reverses

Jas Flower

Jas pods, regular and reverse

 

[Blue-Jay]

For those who have grown Cappuccino Nano - do any of these look characteristic?

I checked the original photo I took when I acquired the bean and the sample I have in the freezer and it looks like the third one from the left is the correct match. Still a very unsettled bean.

 

[meadow]

I don't know if you are talking about me. One of the few Will Bonsall crosses I got from Russ that actually stabilized was a bean I called "Jas". I'd typically grow five or so plants each year and would get a total of maybe 3 seeds that were reverses. That was one reverse seed in a pod, the others in the pod looked regular. I don't recall planting a reverse and getting it to maturity. I tried one year and had to replant practically all the beans due to a late cold snap so almost nothing germinated.

It probably was you! I just did a search and see when you had a Jas with 3 reverse seeds (maybe in 2017?) and you said that you planned to grow them out to see what they would produce. You also spoke about it in Post #733 of the 2018 thread which is followed by a post from aftermidnight talking about a peculiar 'reversal' and the results she had in growing it out.

It was interesting to see the various discussions about reversals over the years. So much good info in these Little Easy Bean Network threads!

 

[meadow]

Okay, so it sounds like reversals can be any number within a pod, anywhere from a singleton to a full pod.

What about crosses? I experienced some crosses this year on two varieties and those plants did not produce any 'true-to-type' seed, only the cross pattern.*

Is that typical for crosses, that the entire plant will produce the new seed coat pattern?

*eta: I harvested pods by the plant so that I'd know what each plant was producing

 

[Eleanor]

Okay, so it sounds like reversals can be any number within a pod, anywhere from a singleton to a full pod.

What about crosses? I experienced some crosses this year on two varieties and those plants did not produce any 'true-to-type' seed, only the cross pattern.*

Is that typical for crosses, that the entire plant will produce the new seed coat pattern?

*eta: I harvested pods by the plant so that I'd know what each plant was producing

Bean coat appearance is governed by the "mother plant" which means if you harvested non-true-to-type seeds from an entire plant you planted a seed that was the result of a cross in its parental generation.

 

[Triffid]

How do you all code/number your seed stock? Do you give each generation of a particular accession a new number, or keep it the same?

 

[meadow]

Bean coat appearance is governed by the "mother plant" which means if you harvested non-true-to-type seeds from an entire plant you planted a seed that was the result of a cross in its parental generation.

Do I understand correctly...

This property also applies to the crop produced by the F1 plant by virtue of it now being the "mother plant"? So there is never a generation that will produce a plant with varied seed color?

 

[Triffid]

@meadow Never, as I understand it. Unless we're talking about that seed-coat colour reversal.
All of the seed-coats/testas of a particular plant are genetically identical. They are maternal tissue, as Eleanor mentioned.
You may see variations within a generation, but not in the seeds of an individual plant, no matter how diverse that generation may be.

 

[reedy]

That is how I understand it as well. Two different F1 seeds from the same plant might be different but all of the resulting seeds from any single seed will be the same. Although over the course of many years I have seen two or three examples that make me wonder. They might have been the result of transposons, genes that although they are the same can, for reasons I don't understand, express in different way.

In corn the outer seed coat called the pericarp is maternal and theoretically is the same on all kernels from a single mother plant but occasionally are not. There is a pattern called chin mark where little streaks show up on the pericarp, some people call it starburst. If one seed on the ear has the genes for it, they all do but sometimes you can see it some kernels and others not. I had an ear this year where 2/3 of the seeds had the chin mark and 1/3 did not but they were not random. All of the 1/3 without were together in one spot on the ear.