2021 Little Easy Bean Network - Bean Lovers Come Discover Something New !

[Ridgerunner]

@BeanWonderin

Speaking of fixing nitrogen, have any of you found that innoculant is beneficial or not?

I've tried inoculant. They are right, you need the type specific to the beans you are growing so be a bit careful there.

From what I've read inoculant does not fix all the nitrogen the bean needs to grow so don't 100% depend on the inoculant for nitrogen. You may need to "fertilize" in some other way also. But it will fix a fair amount of nitrogen. Like many nutrients, nitrogen can leach away, especially in a sandy soil. Water dissolves or absorbs nitrogen, not sure which is the right word, so when the water drains away it catties some nitrogen with it. Having a steady supply of nitrogen could be considered good. My soil is very sandy. That's a big reason I wait until pretty close to planting time to add a lot of compost, to keep the different nutrients from leaching out.

What kind of results did I get? I really did not notice a lot of difference. The beans did well, I did see a lot of the nitrogen-fixing nodes on the roots. But how much of them doing well was the result of the inoculant and how much was related to other things I don't know. I did not do the experiment of half the beans of each variety getting the inoculant and half not. I'm sure it did not hurt them. There are so many different things that affect how a crop produces it's hard to be sure how much something helps.

I used it in new raised beds. I'm sure the bacteria was not present to start with. When I grew beans in those beds the next year in the beds that had inoculant the previous year again they produced the nodes on the roots so it did overwinter down here in my mild winters. The beds that had not been inoculated did not produce those nodes. So when I pulled the beans out when clearing the beds any bean roots that had the nodes were scattered in all the beds so I could seed that bacteria in them.

I think having those nitrogen fixing bacteria is like a lot of what we do. It's not a miracle worker which guarantees total success, but it helps. It helps the beans grow that year and it helps fix nitrogen in the soil. I'd prefer to have it than to not have it.

 

[flowerbug]

@BeanWonderin

Speaking of fixing nitrogen, have any of you found that innoculant is beneficial or not?

I've tried inoculant. They are right, you need the type specific to the beans you are growing so be a bit careful there.

From what I've read inoculant does not fix all the nitrogen the bean needs to grow so don't 100% depend on the inoculant for nitrogen. You may need to "fertilize" in some other way also. But it will fix a fair amount of nitrogen. Like many nutrients, nitrogen can leach away, especially in a sandy soil. Water dissolves or absorbs nitrogen, not sure which is the right word, so when the water drains away it catties some nitrogen with it. Having a steady supply of nitrogen could be considered good. My soil is very sandy. That's a big reason I wait until pretty close to planting time to add a lot of compost, to keep the different nutrients from leaching out.

What kind of results did I get? I really did not notice a lot of difference. The beans did well, I did see a lot of the nitrogen-fixing nodes on the roots. But how much of them doing well was the result of the inoculant and how much was related to other things I don't know. I did not do the experiment of half the beans of each variety getting the inoculant and half not. I'm sure it did not hurt them. There are so many different things that affect how a crop produces it's hard to be sure how much something helps.

I used it in new raised beds. I'm sure the bacteria was not present to start with. When I grew beans in those beds the next year in the beds that had inoculant the previous year again they produced the nodes on the roots so it did overwinter down here in my mild winters. The beds that had not been inoculated did not produce those nodes. So when I pulled the beans out when clearing the beds any bean roots that had the nodes were scattered in all the beds so I could seed that bacteria in them.

I think having those nitrogen fixing bacteria is like a lot of what we do. It's not a miracle worker which guarantees total success, but it helps. It helps the beans grow that year and it helps fix nitrogen in the soil. I'd prefer to have it than to not have it.

if you are losing nutrients to leaching add some clay to the soil that will help hold them in place along with the organic matter. it also helps with holding water.

 

[Ridgerunner]

if you are losing nutrients to leaching add some clay to the soil that will help hold them in place along with the organic matter. it also helps with holding water.

Way ahead of you. I got a ton (2000 pounds) of pure clay from a place that sells pottery clay and mixed it in the raised beds. When I get a soils analysis most of the nutrients are at tremendous high levels. It made a lot of difference in retaining many of them. But some nutrients are really water soluble and need replenishing. Nitrogen is one. Those beds have a lot of compost and some clay but are still mostly sand so leaching is a problem.

 

[flowerbug]

if you have a few months between your winter crops where you can't grow anything a common practice in organic farming is to plant some quick growing green crop that can soak that nitrogen up before it leaches away and then turn it under in the early spring. can help with keeping ground water quality from getting screwed up from all the extra nitrogen leaching.

i think where you are at there may not be enough time, but perhaps it would be worth a try.

 

[heirloomgal]

r are fairly high nitrogen fixers also; but they would probably require inoculant for best results. If you are growing a vegetable that will both enrich the soil & provide food, the choice between those may be a matter of (1) climate (2) personal preference. Favas are better suited to cool summers, soybeans & cowpeas prefer warm summers. If you are growing a cover crop for soil enrichment only, it is best turned under before seeds begin to mature. If a perennial cover crop fits in your garden rotation, alfalfa produces more N than any of the annual legumes... and can be cut for mulch.

That depends. As a rule, closer spacing produces more seed per row foot & more N; but the individual pods will tend to have fewer & smaller seeds, and DTM may be delayed. For edamame, where fatter seeds & more seeds per pod is desirable, wider spacing gives the best results. If the primary concern is soil enrichment, or if a grain (dry) soybean is grown, they can be spaced more closely. My default for grain soybeans is 2-3" apart after thinning, rows 24" apart... with wider rows if warranted by plant height (some varieties are 3-4' tall). For edamame, I generally thin to 3-4" apart, with 24" between rows (although I have done double rows 18" apart for short varieties). If you have the space to do so, thinning to 6" between plants for most edamame varieties will produce a high yield per plant of well-filled pods. Agate is a very early variety though, so 3-4" apart should be OK.

One thing to keep in mind, regarding close spacing. As you noticed, mice may not cause much damage to the rest of the garden, but they REALLY like soybeans (as do all herbivores large & small). They are most damaging when plants mature, and the dense leaf canopy gives them places to feed unobserved by potential predators. Left unchallenged, mice - especially voles - can "harvest" an entire soybean planting. Block plantings would be especially susceptible. You can reduce losses due to mice by wider row spacing, and by tying up the plants to keep them off the ground... but chances are that some form of rodent control will still be necessary.

In regards to the mice, you described exactly my experience. Agate soybeans were the most densely planted, and they suffered the worst by far. I had Beerfriend and Sayamusume right next to them on either side, and they were hardly touched. The Sayamusume was not touched at all, and of course was the most widely spaced and thus, as you said, ready more than two weeks before the others (even though it was supposed to be the latest apparently). The Agate plants grew quite tall, and bent only slightly but the mice seemed to climb the stalk and munch open the pods while probably dangling from the wobbling stems. I've never really seen anything like it in the last 13 years of gardening. (They did massacre late-September maturing hot peppers in my greenhouse though.) Clearly spacing is key to avoid the mice. I had no idea!

Luckily, a stoat or weasel of some kind took residence this fall (Nov) in a burrow behind my shed, an area which skirts the forested area behind my garden. These guys have done a great job controlling voles, mice and the odd rabbit for me in the years that they do show up. So I hope he/she's been dining heartily this winter. Mind you, I wasn't impressed when it went after my beagle!

 

[heirloomgal]

@Zeedman

Is there a reason you don't plant favas? Perhaps you do and I missed it in the posts. Favas I've read are a cool season legume, like a runner bean I guess, somewhat of an English climate set of beans. But I grew both this past summer and they did equally well, and it was quite hot and dry. Apparently favas can become covered in aphids when stressed by heat and drought, but I didn't see a one. And the favas were in raised beds too (just soil, not wood enclosed raised beds). Do you think that some of the standard garden advice is incorrect when it comes to these beans?

 

[heirloomgal]

Given that I am surrounded by white right now, and it will be white here for at least 3 more months, I thought I'd post a few pictures of beans that follow this theme...

Blue Lake, E-Z Pick, and Capitano @ 2020



Here is the smartest bean of them all.
Canadian Wild Goose - flies South for the winter

 

[Zeedman]

Luckily, a stoat or weasel of some kind took residence this fall (Nov) in a burrow behind my shed, an area which skirts the forested area behind my garden. These guys have done a great job controlling voles, mice and the odd rabbit for me in the years that they do show up. So I hope he/she's been dining heartily this winter. Mind you, I wasn't impressed when it went after my beagle!

Wow! Did the stoat try to eat your dog, or was it just two predators fighting over territory?

Lucky you? I wish I had such an efficient predator on my property. I was blessed for many years with hawks which nested in my tree line - until a university professor first caught & tagged the parents, then climbed the tree to tag the fledglings. Apparently his actions scared them off, 2020 was the first time in about 15 years that the hawks were no-shows. I hope they return, those hawks kept the rabbit population down & scared off the squirrels.

@Zeedman

Is there a reason you don't plant favas? Perhaps you do and I missed it in the posts. Favas I've read are a cool season legume, like a runner bean I guess, somewhat of an English climate set of beans. But I grew both this past summer and they did equally well, and it was quite hot and dry. Apparently favas can become covered in aphids when stressed by heat and drought, but I didn't see a one. And the favas were in raised beds too (just soil, not wood enclosed raised beds). Do you think that some of the standard garden advice is incorrect when it comes to these beans?

That's a good question. No, I don't grow favas at present. I've only seen favas being grown in cool climates, such as the San Francisco bay area. SSE has members who grow favas in Michigan, the Atlantic Coast, and in the Southern U.S. (where they are grown as a winter crop)... but no growers in Wisconsin. Although I am in the Northern latitudes, my local climate is very continental. Springs here are often short, and Summer is warm to hot & arrives quickly. Furthermore, my heavy soil is slow to dry in Spring, so I am seldom able to plant early. I tried one fava shortly after moving here, and it withered & died during a hot spell. Other cool-weather crops (such as fenugreek) suffered the same fate. I am in a borderline area for runner beans, which grow & flower, but generally don't set pods until we get a 1-2 day cool snap in August.

But I only tried one variety of fava, and it was 25 years ago... I've learned a lot since then. Maybe they are worth another try. I'll talk to SSE's garden staff, since their climate is similar to mine, and they might be able to make recommendations. It frustrates me when there is a bean I can't grow, and I'd love to knock favas off my "won't grow here" list.

 

[Artorius]

In Poland, the cultivation of favas is very popular. We have many nice varieties adapted to the climate of my country. I don't grow it because I prefer beans, but I have a lot of friends who do it. They plant seedlings at the end of February, and transplant it into the ground in March, when the threat of severe frost has passed. Of course, in plantations, seeds are sown directly into the soil. Mostly at the end of March.

 

[Artorius]

I have a good day today. I have received two parcels. Beans from the USA and tomatoes from Russia. I feel like a bridge between East and West.



Beans from the Appalachian Heirloom Plant Farm. Tony West doesn't ship the seeds abroad, so my friend from the Polish forum who lives in the USA ordered them for me.



I really wanted to have Cornplanter Purple from AHPF because it is a completely different bean than the one I have and which I have grown this year.
I have three other beans with a coat pattern similar to Hazard Fall, so I figured a fourth wouldn't hurt me.