2016 Little Easy Bean Network - Gardeners Keeping Heirloom Beans From Extinction

Bluejay77 said:

I gave my Red Turtle in Pot #2 (Post #193, Page 20) a shot of Expert plant food about a week ago. The leaves are turning darker green. I bought this stuff at Walmart several years ago and use it when I'm growing tomato plants. Never tried it on beans, but it seems to be making these bean plants look healthier. They are also starting to bloom.

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Plants in pots will respond very well to regular feeds, they just don't get exposed to the bacteria required to produce sufficient nodules like soil grown plants often would.
I've found when I trial peas or grow beans in containers the feeding makes a huge difference in seed yield and quality.

You can get a bean inoculant that allows the beans or other legumes to fix nitrogen into the soil. If you've grown legumes in your garden for a while you probably have that in your soil, but if you are growing them in a pot in sterile soil you will not have it. It's a bacteria that infects the roots and causes them to form nodules that fix nitrogen. Since it's a bacteria I don't know how long it stores, probably a long time in an air conditioned house, but if you are growing in containers it might be a decent investment.

I guess I need to look at some of my bean roots when I pull them and see if mine form those nodules. I may need to infect my soil. it's a good infection.

@Bluejay77 you sent me WB PKT#45


I put 20 of these on to germinate, most did Starting to germinate

#45-1 turned out to be a pole bean, grew 8ft.

#45-1 planted Color of flower



Pod First pod to dry down



The color of the seed this pod produced, looks like these pods will produce 6 or 7 seeds.

#45-17 turned out to be a bush bean, very weak plant , managed to get one dried pod before it capitulated . The only pics I managed to get of this one.


The bean I planted The pod it produced

One of the 4 dried seeds from this pod. Pretty much looks like the one I planted. I might have one or two more plants the same as this one, again they are very weak but still hanging in, hopefully they will produce one or two pods.

More to come as they dry down.
Annette

I've bought inoculate a couple of times. I don't figure I need it now. You do have to check the date. Expires in like one year, I believe. Keeps better under refrigeration, just like yeast for bread. The feed store sold me some that was expired. Guess they don't sell a lot of it.

Ridgerunner said:

You can get a bean inoculant that allows the beans or other legumes to fix nitrogen into the soil. If you've grown legumes in your garden for a while you probably have that in your soil, but if you are growing them in a pot in sterile soil you will not have it. It's a bacteria that infects the roots and causes them to form nodules that fix nitrogen. Since it's a bacteria I don't know how long it stores, probably a long time in an air conditioned house, but if you are growing in containers it might be a decent investment.

I guess I need to look at some of my bean roots when I pull them and see if mine form those nodules. I may need to infect my soil. it's a good infection.

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journey11 said:

I've bought inoculate a couple of times. I don't figure I need it now. You do have to check the date. Expires in like one year, I believe. Keeps better under refrigeration, just like yeast for bread. The feed store sold me some that was expired. Guess they don't sell a lot of it.

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Another interesting note is that even if you have the bacteria present but there is an abundance of nitrogen you can get decreased nodule formation.
I'd be interested to see how much nodules you have on some of the plants @journey11

Hal said:

Another interesting note is that even if you have the bacteria present but there is an abundance of nitrogen you can get decreased nodule formation.
I'd be interested to see how much nodules you have on some of the plants @journey11

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I'll be sure to take a closer look at them when I pull them up in the fall. I put the chickens over the garden last winter. I probably do have high N.

@aftermidnight, Sounds like you are not getting such good results from your #45 bean. Do I read that correctly? Is it your cooler than normal summer giving you growth problems.

If you hang on to all the seed you get from #45 this year. Then hang on to that seed import label and send everything you were going to send next year in the autumn of 2017.

@Bluejay I don't think it's our weather because all my other beans are doing fine, even the Nuna beans in tubs are producing lots of pods. Some of the #45's are just not doing much, in fact they are going down hill, the one vine that really took off, it's producing lots of flowers and pods but the pods are really tiny and don't seem to be growing, I mean tiny.

The 4 or 5 plants of Candy growing in the same area have gone wild and I'm going to get lots of seed from them, go figure . I am getting a fair amount of seed off #45-1, still have some pods drying down on the vine but have already collected a couple of dozen seeds. We'll just have to wait and see what I end up with at the end of the season. I still have some seed left of the #45's you sent me, if I can get them to germinate I'll plant them next year.

Annette

I'm having a bit of the same issue with one of mine. The 38's, which I did not segregate the seeds when I planted them as they all looked about the same, are planted in two different areas. One area has started to make pods, I even got a few seeds from one plant, but the other area just isn't setting pods. It's growing (quite vigorously compared to the area setting pods) and blooming a little but not a lot, and not setting pods. Looking at them you would think they were different beans. The way all these are segregating on me, they might be. But I think the real difference is that the ones growing vigorously but not setting pods are in an area really rich in organic matter. In past years I stacked partially composted cow manure in that vacinity before waiting for it to break down, and I'm sure some leached into this area. I think there is a lot of nitrogen there compared to the other area. The other area is still very slow though.

I will have some seeds from the 38's, I already have. I'd like to get some seeds from a different vine though. The seeds I've gotten are all from the same vine and look nothing like the seed I planted. I have about 8 vines total of this one and will have seeds from several different vines at the end of the day.

But I only have one plant of what I'm calling 39C. It's a pole and while not hugely vigorous it's growing OK. It's blooming, just not setting pods. I have yet to find one baby pod on it. I have plenty of wind and I often shake the trellis to try to help pollinate it. The vine itself does not look threatened, it is still healthy and growing. This one is not in a high nitrogen area.

Some of the other 39's are already finished, a 39A bush. The 39Bs, some pole and one bush, are producing but slow to dry out. They will get there. I'm just wondering if my current problem children, both pole, are just long season beans. My temperatures have been in the 90's so maybe it's a bit hot for the pods to set, but the vines are holding up to the temperatures quite well, looking healthy and growing. Other beans are setting plenty of pods. I think some of it is that some take longer seasons than others. I'll wait until the end of the growing season to pass judgment on which I want to grow again.

Annette, I was surprised to heart you are getting beans that look a lot like what you planted. I'm not getting that at all. Hopefully yours are well on the way to finishing segregation. I'm going to collect more beans and let them dry out so I have the final colors and patterns before I do another bean show, but some of my results have been really interesting, colors and patterns.

Could be that with some of @aftermidnight's #45 beans and @Ridgerunner's #38's it's just the nature of the cross. I suppose age of the seed could be a factor in plant vigor. Both #45 and #38 original seed packets that I have were marked 2007. However I have gotten normal plant growth vigor out of 10 year old seed. It will be interesting to see what kind of plants come out the new seed as far as growth vigor and seed production if your plants do manage to produce any seed.