2018 Little Easy Bean Network - Join Us In Saving Amazing Heirloom Beans

[Blue-Jay]

For a long time I believed the notion that beans don't cross but in my garden it is very far from true. Bumblebees are the culprits. They often don't even wait for the flower to open, they chew or pry it open, I'v watched them do it.

I'm sure if I wanted to cross specific beans all I would have to do is plant say, five seeds on the same pole. One variety A and the other four variety B. I don't know what the exact breakdown would be but a high % of the seeds on A and some on B would be crossed. Then just grow out the seeds from A for a couple generations and find the new beans.

I have a large tan bean from a cross between KY Wonder and a black bean called Ideal Market. I think last year was the F4 and I'v been planting just the large tan seeds but I still got most of the original segregation in last years crop. So, what I don't know is how long it would take to stabilize for a specific new kind.

@reedy,

I think the time it takes a bean cross to stablize depends on the cross. I really don't know why but some will stablize faster than others. I've had some beans take two or three generations to stablize. I have seen a couple that were stable right from the start, and I have one or two crosses that each time I grow them they just keep churning out variations of seed coats, pod differences and sometimes a little bit of difference in their growth.

I have one cross that occured 41 years ago, and this bean makes three different seed coats every time it's grown. The plants along with the pods and blossom colors all seem uniform. I believe that this one particular cross is stable.

 

[reedy]

I think I'll keep trying to stabilize what I'm calling my Hoosier Wonder beans. They have nice long pods, up to 8" or so and a little on the flat side. Very nice for a snap bean. Not really better than a lot of others I suppose, just kind of fun to think they are my own kind.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I think I'll keep trying to stabilize what I'm calling my Hoosier Wonder beans. They have nice long pods, up to 8" or so and a little on the flat side. Very nice for a snap bean. Not really better than a lot of others I suppose, just kind of fun to think they are my own kind.

That's part of the fun of gardening and stablizing an outcross you find among your plants in your garden. It's your own bean or your variety of whatever vegetable you saved. Just think if you didn't save that outcross. Gardens through the years come and go. You work the soil, plant your gardens, harvest your vegetables. When the garden is done you till the old plants into the soil or compost them. Bacteria reduces all that stuff to minerals back into the soil. 20 years from now what memories of your gardens would you have. All the vegetables have been eaten. You remember the soil you worked and the clean up at the end of the season. Yes you remember the fun of having done that work, and the good food you raised but for the most part it's still all gone. However when you saved your outcross and stablized it. It's that tangeable thing you brought along with you through the years. It's still with you. Like a companion traveling along with you in the life of your gardens. Your very own variety. That's why seed saving is so nice too. I still have seeds of varieties I have grown through years. They have traveled with me through my life. There is to me something very comforting about that.

You just never know too if that variety you stablized will take on a life of it's own. You might share it with someone and they intern share it with someone else. Other people might think it's better bean than what you thought it was. As it moves on through other peoples hands and gardens it just might make you feel glad you saved it. A bigger satisfaction than the one you had before by it just being your companion through the life of your gardens.

 

[Zeedman]

Yes, Zeedman was my source, both times. I grew the variety around 2008 and my family (parents, brothers, grandmother) loved them so much we saved almost no seeds at all!Those seeds succumbed to a cold and wet spring.

My new stock was acquired a couple of years ago and seems to do well here.

Wow, that trade was a long time ago. Glad to see that both Galante & Sierra Madre are still doing well. I am really surprised to see Jim Su's long bean listed; I remember that bean from the years when trading on Gardenweb was still vibrant. I really miss those days, a lot of great heirlooms were first traded there which went on to become widely distributed.

 

[HmooseK]

@Zeedman

Yes Buddy, lots of great trades happened on GW.

I ran across my stash of Woods Mountain Crazy Bean from 2011 the other night. Germination tested 100% with 12/12.

I met a ton of people on GW.

You, Annette, George, Sherry, Harry, and several more!

Those were great times indeed!

 

[HmooseK]

Here is my latest growout list

I thought it would be nice to see what everyone is growing. Some of mine are planted and some are in damp paper towels germinating.

Oaxacan Cream---1 growing, 4 more in paper towel.

Hoteko---1 growing, 4 more in PT.

Chestnut Flavored---7 growing

Minnie Shatterly---12 planted

Pienky Jas---2 planted

Woods Mountain Crazy Bean--12 sprouted beans planted. None are up yet.

Sierra Madre (yard long bean) --10 in PT

Chicken Mamma91's Outcrossed Purple Pole---4 in PT

Orca Beans---10 in PT

Black Jungle Butter Bean---10 in PT

Turkey Craw---10 in PT

Tennessee Green Pod---10 in PT

Ruth Bible---10 in PT

Cherokee TOT---10 in PT

Grandma Roberts---10 in PT

Tobacco Worm---10 in PT

I also have 10 of Annette's beans in PT (I forget the name of them, I just call them Annette's.) She calls them Emelia's I think. She's probably gonna wop me upside the head cause she's told me the name several times, but I've called them Annette's beans for years.



Some of this seed is really old and I don't expect much in the way of germination. I'll be lucky to get a bean or 2 of each.

 

[aftermidnight]

LOL @HmooseK The name is "Emelia's Italian Pole" I changed it from Auntie Vi when I finally found out it's history. A bean brought to Canada in 1911 by Mrs. Emelia Fuller, I was given it in 1965 by a neighbor. Years later I joined GW and started asking if anyone knew this bean, after much comparing and searching I was about to give up when I found it's history quite by accident. I was the only person still growing it as far as I know. I posted about it here but found this one quicker.
https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2002281/emelias-italian-pole-bean-aka-auntie-vi?n=13
Since then Emelia's has done a bit of traveling, she's made her way around Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom and is or has been sold commercially in all three countries.
Talking about old seed, I haven't grown Polish Freidank since 2011, I wanted to share these with Spike so did a germination test. I only had 5 germinate out of about 100, it was one of the beans I still had stored in the fridge. I contacted the person I got them from for a backup, apparently she has lost them too so it's all hinging on these 5 seeds if no-one else has them. I guess not a good idea to keep bean seed in the fridge even if they're in well sealed containers. Most of mine are in a freezer now, still have a few more to get in there.....me thinks I need a bigger freezer .

Annette

 

[HmooseK]

@aftermidnight

Oh Annette, we be quite the bean freaks don't we! I wish you much Success with Polish Freidank!

 

[flowerbug]

@reedy,

I think the time it takes a bean cross to stablize depends on the cross. I really don't know why but some will stablize faster than others. I've had some beans take two or three generations to stablize. I have seen a couple that were stable right from the start, and I have one or two crosses that each time I grow them they just keep churning out variations of seed coats, pod differences and sometimes a little bit of difference in their growth.

I have one cross that occured 41 years ago, and this bean makes three different seed coats every time it's grown. The plants along with the pods and blossom colors all seem uniform. I believe that this one particular cross is stable.

i think the science explains this fairly well, the paper that @HmooseK posted a link to the other day is pretty clear, some traits are easily followed because they are single gene controlled so you will see the normal Mendelian genetics pattern with those, with the dominant and recessive genes. then you get the rest where traits are controlled by a mix of genes and only capable of being followed by mere mortals by being very observant and patient because they are selected by how they are expressed. what happens when you have several hundred genes involved and in some cases the end result is still the same expressed characteristic but the pathway getting there may be different? to me it may look like a normal bean for that variety, but under the hood it could have gone via more than one route and you can't pin it down without having the full genetics sequenced.

this is complicated even further when you realise that some genes encode proteins but the folding and expression of those can be also multiplied by various cellular happenings (and of course influenced by environment). luckily this doesn't seem to be a hugely common event, but it does happen.

i think your above pattern Russ fits into this description, where some are stable from the start (dominant genes), some within a few seasons (until you get the dominant and recessive genes paired up) and the rest -->> there be dragons... or much fun depending upon how closely you are really going to follow them and count beans and track each generation.

for older heirloom and open pollinated seeds i'd say they are likely to be fairly stable if they'd already been grown a number of years. so to keep them going shouldn't be too impossible, but the caretakers for the seeds will also have to keep an idea in mind of what is normal for that variety in case some out-crosses do happen.

 

[flowerbug]

LOL @HmooseK The name is "Emelia's Italian Pole" I changed it from Auntie Vi when I finally found out it's history. A bean brought to Canada in 1911 by Mrs. Emelia Fuller, I was given it in 1965 by a neighbor. Years later I joined GW and started asking if anyone knew this bean, after much comparing and searching I was about to give up when I found it's history quite by accident. I was the only person still growing it as far as I know. I posted about it here but found this one quicker.
https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2002281/emelias-italian-pole-bean-aka-auntie-vi?n=13
Since then Emelia's has done a bit of traveling, she's made her way around Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom and is or has been sold commercially in all three countries.
Talking about old seed, I haven't grown Polish Freidank since 2011, I wanted to share these with Spike so did a germination test. I only had 5 germinate out of about 100, it was one of the beans I still had stored in the fridge. I contacted the person I got them from for a backup, apparently she has lost them too so it's all hinging on these 5 seeds if no-one else has them. I guess not a good idea to keep bean seed in the fridge even if they're in well sealed containers. Most of mine are in a freezer now, still have a few more to get in there.....me thinks I need a bigger freezer .

Annette

now i feel like a real youngster as i was pretty young when you were given those...