2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

🤩 I saw comparisons for Mrs. Fortune and Major Cook's and was intrigued.

Have you seen this review? Do you think it a fair/accurate assessment?

Interesting @meadow! Well, the bean seed picture looks like mine, but everything else seems rather different? The HSL picture -though it's the same bean- is much closer to what I grew though my pods were more curved. It produced well and was certainly early but I wouldn't call it crazy productive, but that could change in a different year. Plus, my beans struggled this year with the vagaries of early summer weather. I grew it for seed this year (1st time trying it), so I didn't try any green yet.

I also grew Major Cook's this year, and it looks similar pod wise, but it matured quite a bit later. It was a nice bean too.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thanks for the translation @Artorius ! Aha, so it wasn't named by a guy trying to poke fun afterall!

In Czech:
Šedá Kravička = Grey Cow affectionately
Růžová Kravička = Pink Cow

 

[heirloomgal]

@Zeedman I have one more plant that needs to be shelled, but I couldn't resist peeking at the weight of what Ive shelled so far, 9 plants.....(sorry, didn't know how to flip it)

The technique of lifting beans while still fairly green to ripen undercover, even for the soybeans, has worked well for me this year. 1pound, 6 ounces!!!

Found my FIRST brittle Lazy Wife pods tonight. Thought we'd have a group opening since this was a hopeful experiment. The pods were still very green when I lifted it, the most green of any I think so far, so quality.....????

But..........the pods seemed fishy. Sometimes the pods wrinkle and sometimes not on the same plant depending on the drying conditions and if they change. So maybe it's that?

Oh my! Some of these pods are not like the others.....

A little closer look! Sort of an orangey colour with burgundy speckles and stripes. Wow! The few pinker ones in the upper right were not as bone dry on the inside as I thought they were. It's a beautiful cross!

Here were the true to type Lazy Wives...

Not bad for maturing indoors, from pure green!

 

[jbosmith]

@Zeedman I have one more plant that needs to be shelled, but I couldn't resist peeking at the weight of what Ive shelled so far, 9 plants.....(sorry, didn't know how to flip it)
View attachment 52586

Ohhhh these are beautiful! :-o

 

[heirloomgal]

I just love them! @Zeedman was so kind to share some with me. I can't believe how much they produce! And I lost a lot of branches to breakage. I can't help but wonder how much more all those branches would have added to my pile......

 

[Zeedman]

I just love them! @Zeedman was so kind to share some with me. I can't believe how much they produce! And I lost a lot of branches to breakage. I can't help but wonder how much more all those branches would have added to my pile......

High yielding, beautiful, and high protein (about 46% dry weight). Too bad about those heavily-laden side branches breaking off, that really is this variety's only liability. My fear was that DV-2371 might not mature in your climate, since it has a fairly long DTM; I'm glad it did so well.

 

[jbosmith]

High yielding, beautiful, and high protein (about 46% dry weight). Too bad about those heavily-laden side branches breaking off, that really is this variety's only liability. My fear was that DV-2371 might not mature in your climate, since it has a fairly long DTM; I'm glad it did so well.

This is my concern in growing soy in my cold gardens, and those gardens have a similar climate to @heirloomgal's. This all gives me a lot of hope! I'm also jealous of both those swirls and the yield. My Ezonishiki gave me around 6 oz from the same number of plants.

 

[Zeedman]

This is my concern in growing soy in my cold gardens, and those gardens have a similar climate to @heirloomgal's. This all gives me a lot of hope! I'm also jealous of both those swirls and the yield. My Ezonishiki gave me around 6 oz from the same number of plants.

Ezonishiki is in the earliest soybean Maturity Group (type 000). As a rule, the tradeoff for that earliness is a poor yield.; but Ezonishiki actually does pretty well - and it is both fairly pretty, and a good early edamame. The highest yielding Group 000 soybean that I have is the yellow-seeded Bei 77-6177 (which @digitS' grows) which yields about 30% more.

The yields get better as the Maturity Group - and DTM - increase. DV-2371, in Maturity Group I, is about 30 days later.

 

[flowerbug]

...
The yields get better as the Maturity Group - and DTM - increase. DV-2371, in Maturity Group I, is about 30 days later.

wow, that's a large difference! 30 days would likely put a plant into the frost zone here. why such a large range and not something more like 15 days?

 

[ducks4you]

You know those little immature brownish things you find in a bean pod that never developed into a seed. I have had pods that were kept moist by the weather and laying on the ground. I've seen those little immature structures sprout and show a bean root sticking out of them. This happened during my 2020 bush bean grow out when we had lots of rain at the time pods were drying. So bean seed viability happens very early. Probably earlier than the plump enough stage. However If I'm going to pick them green I like to get them when they are very plump so I can have decently filled out seed when they finally dry.

This is probably the most quoted post on this thread right now!!

I thought of this when I was canned green beans yesterday. I was looking Hard at some of the pods and thinking, "What IF there are viable seeds in this pod?" 🤨
Should I can it, OR, should I dry it out and save it?
Since I started harvesting pods for seed LATE, and, admittedly, I am very new to this!, I have been accumulating bean seed pods in a 6 inch deep, 12 x 18 inch aluminum "turkey roaster" bought For gardening purposes last year. I have it downstairs on the top row of my growing shelf unit in the basement with a heat mat below and a gro light ON above.
I will be adding pods to it today.