2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[flowerbug]

How do you all code/number your seed stock? Do you give each generation of a particular accession a new number, or keep it the same?

i put a tag in each container of beans that has the year on it. this way i can be sure to eat the older beans up (if they are bulk eating beans) or i know what year to write on the seed packet that they were grown if i'm giving them away. almost all beans i keep have a year on them now. a few small batches i may not get labelled or lose the label (but then i may know what year by what box it is in).

 

[flowerbug]

Do I understand correctly...

This property also applies to the crop produced by the F1 plant by virtue of it now being the "mother plant"? So there is never a generation that will produce a plant with varied seed color?

the only variations i've seen so far are the reverses mentioned elsewhere and some markings which i would say are from environmental conditions (water marks, stains, ferments, droughts, mold, etc.).

otherwise i assume that all off-type beans i harvest are from me planting beans that crossed the previous season those seeds were grown.

but also note that some beans do vary by growing conditions enough that you can be fooled into thinking you're dealing with a cross when you may not be...

this year when i grew lavender (bush bean) it was very nicely colored as it should be. difference was the soil was better where it was grown. previous year i'd grown mostly very pale almost white beans instead of lavender. i also had three odd beans come from my lavender planting this year (a full white bean, an olive bean (oh no), and a semi-runner to pole version which is a different color so it should be interesting to see what happens with these if i grow them out again).

 

[Ridgerunner]

What about crosses? I experienced some crosses this year on two varieties and those plants did not produce any 'true-to-type' seed, only the cross pattern.*

Is that typical for crosses, that the entire plant will produce the new seed coat pattern?

This can get complicated and has caused a lot of confusion on here but I'll try.

If you cross two different bean varieties, say the father is Bean "A" and the mother is Bean "B". The beans produced that year will look like what Bean "B" regularly produces. You cannot tell by looking at them that those beans have been cross pollinated. Bean "B"'s growth pattern, flower color, and pod color will be the same as her normal plants. The father's genetic production will not affect that year's production or growth.

If you plant those cross-pollinated beans then the genetic mix will start to show through. Even if you plant the beans from the same pod you can get different growth habits, pod colors, flower patterns, and dried bean colors/patterns. It is possible one could look like the bean planted but often none do.

All of the beans that grow on one plant should all look the "same". I'll put that in quotes because I think most of us know that certain varieties can express differently, but within limits. I'll include Miss T Red #2 as an example. These are all the same bean, just look slightly different. They were all harvested off of the same plant.

I'll take this photo from the post on the previous page since it's handy. These came from planting cross pollinated beans. It sometimes happens that two different plants can produce identical looking beans in this situation but these came from at least four different plants. If you look in each group, the beans look pretty much the same. But if you compare groups they may have different shapes or be different sizes. When they were growing they could have had different colors of flowers or different colors or sizes of pods.

If you plant one of these you could easily get something totally different.

 

[flowerbug]

Okay, so it sounds like reversals can be any number within a pod, anywhere from a singleton to a full pod.

yes, that's what i've observed repeatedly in several different varieties. i shell each pod by hand most of the time so i'm always observing patterns in production, how easy a bean might shell out, fungal resistance to rotting during bad conditions, how many seeds don't form completely, etc.).

my above comment makes me wonder how many different varieties i've grown by now and all of the various selections i've tried too. hmm. 200 or more perhaps? i think that's a fair quick estimate. seen maybe a half dozen to a dozen which throw reverses.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In corn the outer seed coat called the pericarp is maternal and theoretically is the same on all kernels from a single mother plant but occasionally are not. There is a pattern called chin mark where little streaks show up on the pericarp, some people call it starburst. If one seed on the ear has the genes for it, they all do but sometimes you can see it some kernels and others not. I had an ear this year where 2/3 of the seeds had the chin mark and 1/3 did not but they were not random. All of the 1/3 without were together in one spot on the ear.

Corn is different and I don't know why. You don't want to plant popcorn where it will cross-pollinate with some other corn, that crop won't pop. Cross-pollinating can affect that year's production in corn. No so with beans.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Corn is different and I don't know why. You don't want to plant popcorn where it will cross-pollinate with some other corn, that crop won't pop. Cross-pollinating can affect that year's production in corn. No so with beans.

Part of the reason corn (and other monocots) are different is because of how the seed is formed. In dicots, as the seed develops, most to all of the endosperm is absorbed by the cotyledons of the embryo (which is why, when the seed sprouts, they can green up and become the first pseudo leaves.

In a monocot, very little of the endosperm is absorbed before the seed is mature, so it's still mostly there. In a corn kernel, the only part that is actually the embryo is the little pointy bit at the very front of the kernel (in the recessed part) EVERYTHING else in the seeds inside is endosperm (that's why you can pop the embryo (along with the oily part of the endosperm, which together form the germ) out of the kernel (like, say, when you are turning corn into hominy). And that endosperm is TRIPLOID, not diploid (it has three sets of chromosomes, not two). That means that the Punnet squares get a LOT more complicated, and you get a lot more variations.

The colors in corn are also divided up between three layers, the endosperm itself, which can be white or yellow (or, very rarely, purple) the aleurone, a more or less one cell thick layer where the blues, purples, pinks etc. can show up, and the pericarp (which is indeed all maternal tissue) which can hold reds, oranges, purples, tans and browns. Put these all together and you can get a MASSIVE number of colors and patterns.

As for popcorn, that's sort of an "it depends". A lot of popcorns (though not all) have something called the "P" gene that prevents them from successfully crossing with a corn that does not also have it. So popcorns can in fact often not cross with non-popcorns, and if you want to do so, you sometimes have to find "bridging" varieties to cross to to make the cross work (that's also probably why miniature non-popcorns (like the ones I collected) are so rare, since popcorn is generally the only corn where being extra small eared is tolerated (remember, most "Indian Corn" you hang on your doors in the fall is popcorn of some sort) basically no one wants to cross them on purpose, and having them cross accidentally requires contact under somewhat unusual circumstances.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll pretend I understood a third of that. Isn't this stuff fun!

 

[heirloomgal]

Part of the reason corn (and other monocots) are different is because of how the seed is formed. In dicots, as the seed develops, most to all of the endosperm is absorbed by the cotyledons of the embryo (which is why, when the seed sprouts, they can green up and become the first pseudo leaves.

In a monocot, very little of the endosperm is absorbed before the seed is mature, so it's still mostly there. In a corn kernel, the only part that is actually the embryo is the little pointy bit at the very front of the kernel (in the recessed part) EVERYTHING else in the seeds inside is endosperm (that's why you can pop the embryo (along with the oily part of the endosperm, which together form the germ) out of the kernel (like, say, when you are turning corn into hominy). And that endosperm is TRIPLOID, not diploid (it has three sets of chromosomes, not two). That means that the Punnet squares get a LOT more complicated, and you get a lot more variations.

The colors in corn are also divided up between three layers, the endosperm itself, which can be white or yellow (or, very rarely, purple) the aleurone, a more or less one cell thick layer where the blues, purples, pinks etc. can show up, and the pericarp (which is indeed all maternal tissue) which can hold reds, oranges, purples, tans and browns. Put these all together and you can get a MASSIVE number of colors and patterns.

As for popcorn, that's sort of an "it depends". A lot of popcorns (though not all) have something called the "P" gene that prevents them from successfully crossing with a corn that does not also have it. So popcorns can in fact often not cross with non-popcorns, and if you want to do so, you sometimes have to find "bridging" varieties to cross to to make the cross work (that's also probably why miniature non-popcorns (like the ones I collected) are so rare, since popcorn is generally the only corn where being extra small eared is tolerated (remember, most "Indian Corn" you hang on your doors in the fall is popcorn of some sort) basically no one wants to cross them on purpose, and having them cross accidentally requires contact under somewhat unusual circumstances.

But as to the corn - do you really think I could plant more than one corn (one popcorn, one other kind) this year and have them not cross?

I would LOVE to do that! I was just bellyching to a friend how with all the corn packets I've accumulated, many of them popcorns, it'll take me 15 years to grow it all given I can only do 1 per year.

 

[flowerbug]

I'll pretend I understood a third of that. Isn't this stuff fun!

try reading some genetics research papers talking about the various markers and the methods they use. i retain only little bits and shards of them and unfortunately it's gone within a few days unless i study it repeatedly. i do sort of know what they are getting at but the details i'd never be able to replicate if i were forced to do it. i don't have the background or software they reference and no labs either. minions would be handy too... note, that was minions not onions... i've got onions...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

But as to the corn - do you really think I could plant more than one corn (one popcorn, one other kind) this year and have them not cross?

I would LOVE to do that! I was just bellyching to a friend how with all the corn packets I've accumulated, many of them popcorns, it'll take me 15 years to grow it all given I can only do 1 per year.

I honestly don't know. You have to make sure your popcorn had the P gene, and your other corn didn't. If you did that, maybe.

Warning: ALL sweetcorns have the "P" gene as well (which is why they are so popular in breeding as bridge varieities). So your other corn can't be a sweetcorn.