2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[meadow]

I have not done a comparison grow out of SC and AK/Mayflower.

I was told by a native American the Mayflower bean is only a made up story. This bean was already here being grown by the native people in North America. Somewhere I read something about the food carried by the Mayflower ship and it said the beans on the Mayflower were mostly pulses from India. Also those arrivals on the Mayflower would have starved to death and were kept alive by the food given to them by the native people. I would suspect that any food the Mayflower arrivals had including any garden beans would have been totally eaten if they were indeed going to starve to death.

Since I was told this by this native American who supplied me with a sample of the Seneca Cornstalk. I have then not collected the bean called Mayflower.

Oh! I hadn't heard that story about it having come on the Mayflower (although it's painfully obvious after reading your post, haha! 🙄). My package of Amish Knuttle from SSE came with Mayflower as an alternate name, which is why I posted it both ways here.

It was Phil's website that got me to wondering if you agreed with him about Amish Knuttle being the same bean as Seneca Cornstalk.

 

[heirloomgal]

Personally, I question the origin of a lot beans. Anybody can claim they're from anywhere, or simply rename it as was frequently done by heirloom seed catalogues for many vegetables. Giving something a new name and story is a great selling option, realtive to the cultural interests of any given time period and also having 'new' varieties. I just read, conicidentally, last night about a bean called 'Seneca Bird Egg' which turns out to be historical fiction. It's apparently from Chile, and somwhere along the way aquired this fictitous name and association. Chile only donated this bean to the USDA in 1988. So I guess it doesn't take very long for things to get mixed up.

 

[Jack Holloway]

I think this happens quite a bit in tomatoes too. I've read of one variety (can't remember which right now) that had a long story behind it, and "discovered" by a granddame of tomatoes, that when released, was not stable (with no mention of instablity on release). Another tomato, Vintage Wine, is actually an off-type, of a tomato that Tom Wagner didn't release, but had given some seeds of it to someone in Europe. The "type" of it had a fatal gene that seeds wouldn't sprout if it had two copies of the gene (homozygous). So the person selected out the plants that didn't have that gene and called it Vintage Wine. Mr. Wagner was also the breeder of the Green Zebra tomato, Green Grape, and many others. Mostly unrecognized for his work.

 

[heirloomgal]

I think this happens quite a bit in tomatoes too. I've read of one variety (can't remember which right now) that had a long story behind it, and "discovered" by a granddame of tomatoes, that when released, was not stable (with no mention of instablity on release). Another tomato, Vintage Wine, is actually an off-type, of a tomato that Tom Wagner didn't release, but had given some seeds of it to someone in Europe. The "type" of it had a fatal gene that seeds wouldn't sprout if it had two copies of the gene (homozygous). So the person selected out the plants that didn't have that gene and called it Vintage Wine. Mr. Wagner was also the breeder of the Green Zebra tomato, Green Grape, and many others. Mostly unrecognized for his work.

I agree totally @Jack Holloway. Tomatoes too, and it's also a big issue with heritage lettuce varieties. Unless it's a very recently developed/selected/stabilized variety of vegetable there is no way to unriddle it all. It's in the public domain and it's open season.

 

[meadow]

Personally, I question the origin of a lot beans. Anybody can claim they're from anywhere, or simply rename it as was frequently done by heirloom seed catalogues for many vegetables. Giving something a new name and story is a great selling option, realtive to the cultural interests of any given time period and also having 'new' varieties. I just read, conicidentally, last night about a bean called 'Seneca Bird Egg' which turns out to be historical fiction. It's apparently from Chile, and somwhere along the way aquired this fictitous name and association. Chile only donated this bean to the USDA in 1988. So I guess it doesn't take very long for things to get mixed up.

That's a good point. Look at Kentucky Wonder/Old Homestead, for instance. I think I posted about that in this thread some time ago when I was researching the old Burpee seed catalogue for Lazy Wife's Pole Bean.

For the bean from Chile, if it didn't come to the US until 1988, then it may be a different bean. Seneca Bird Egg (or was it Buxton Buckshot?) was being sold in catalogs here in the mid 1800's according to A Bean Collector's Window.

But there are also many lookalike beans. I guess we'd need to see the growth habit too and not just the seed.

 

[heirloomgal]

Yes, the lookalike beans - like Fiesta - are another thing to contend with. It would be SUPER easy to mix up beans that look exactly alike, especially if one is searching around looking for a bean's id online and they see a bean that looks exactly like what they have. They could probably be distinguished with genetic sequencing, but not many have the facilities for that. lol

 

[jbosmith]

Yes, the lookalike beans - like Fiesta - are another thing to contend with. It would be SUPER easy to mix up beans that look exactly alike, especially if one is searching around looking for a bean's id online and they see a bean that looks exactly like what they have. They could probably be distinguished with genetic sequencing, but not many have the facilities for that. lol

^^ and a lot of observed and perfectly valid minor "distinguishing" bean differences are due to environment over genetics (or environment causing different expression at least).

 

[Jack Holloway]

I read 20 - 30 years ago that one bean collector just dumped look-a-likes together, assuming that the different names were for the same bean. Not sure if he looked at growing habit, time to maturity, or anything like that. Plus, the Ken Early bean, that shouldn't be two words, but just Kenearly. Spelling errors. Bad penmanship. Heck, there is one tomato from SSE that someone took the code for the grower, and made it into a word, and people started giving it a history. A Brandywine if I remember correctly.

 

[meadow]

I suppose too that the beans from the same grow-lot could be given to different people and they'd eventually wind up with different strains. Especially if any crossing occurred (one source of Marfax has beans that include the correct color but wrong shape).

Everyone has their own selection criteria that might affect the end result. I have a dislike of the shortcut cutshort shape, and tend to cull that one out. I think I'll have to get over that, after reading some of Carol Deppe's writings. I think it is better to go for genetic diversity and health rather than unimportant details like a blunted end shape.

 

[heirloomgal]

I read 20 - 30 years ago that one bean collector just dumped look-a-likes together, assuming that the different names were for the same bean. Not sure if he looked at growing habit, time to maturity, or anything like that. Plus, the Ken Early bean, that shouldn't be two words, but just Kenearly. Spelling errors. Bad penmanship. Heck, there is one tomato from SSE that someone took the code for the grower, and made it into a word, and people started giving it a history. A Brandywine if I remember correctly.

The best one I ever read was the Triomphe de F'arcy bean was once circulated as 'Farting Triumph'.

Another identification glitch is language. Very easy to spell incorrectly in a language that isn't your own.