@Bluejay77 I grew a sample of Gila River in 2012, my seed looks a little different than yours, mine were more speckled, probably different growing conditions.
Soil conditions can also influence seed coat expression a lot. Page 56 shows what happened to Ernie's Big Eye grown in England and mine grown this summer. Could be temperature too. I think you mentioned you have slightly cooler but longer summers than I do. The colored area on your beans look the same shade, just more white in relation to the maroon.
This bean that I grew this summer is "Gill's Delicious Giant" also known simply as "Delicious Giant". Introduced by the Gill Brothers Seed Comany of Portland, Oregon in 1925. It is a pole snap variety. Gill Brother's crossed Oregon Giant and Kentucky Wonder to produce the Delicious Giant. It was an improvement in productivity over Oregon Giant and earlier.
It certainly has a name that would sell on name only. I have so many snap beans to try. I have not tried this one yet but hope to sometime. I have no idea how productive it might be. However this is what I found on the bean on the U.S. National Germ Plasm System website.
Twice as productive as Oregon Giant, of better quality. Pod produced in clusters of 4 to 6, the stems of which protrude outside of foliage. Pods are green, faintly striped with red lines which disappear when cooked, often 10" long. Very meaty, mild and stringless; ideal for canning/freezing.
Perhaps someone here on this thread would like some seeds and grow them out and report back on them next year. I'll send the seeds.
This is an outcross I found in my bean garden about three years ago. The seed mother is an outcross that I found in "Goose Cranberry" which is a red cranberry type. So this gold looking bean is a segregation of that outcross. This gold colored bean I've been calling it "Golden Pond" (left photo). It's a bush dry bean like it's seed mother. I have a feeling it's going to stablize fairly quickly. It' has only produced one other segregation that is white seeded (right photo). If I wanted to grow out the white seeded bean it might be stable right away. White seededness is a recessive trait. Recessive traits are easy to select for as they usually become settled down quickly once genes for those recessive traits are paired up. I would like to see the Golden Pond growing in a fairly good number in a good growing season to see how productive it is and how well the pods dry.
"Golden Pond"---------------------------------------------------Unnamed Golden Pond Segregation
This bean is new seed also from 2016. It is the bean that came out of the outcross of "Goose Cranberrry", and I have given this bean a working title of "Goose Cranberry Cross" (left photo). This is the bean that produced "Golden Pond". However this year it produced only a smaller sized white bean (right photo).
I got the Vermont Bean Seed Company catalog in the mail yesterday and it was pretty neat what I read about a bean they carry called "Lazy Housewife". Their copy says.
We've carried a variety called "Lazy Housewife" in the past but had to drop it due to variablity in the seed.
We have now located a source for the original round seeded strain and are excited to pass on the findings to you.
