2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

@Bluejay77 , it appears we are both in the same boat, since I got started late. I'm only now getting my bean transplants in, and the direct-seeded soybeans are just beginning to come up. It will be a race with the frost this year to get any dry seed, chances are that I will need to apply some extra TLC to protect plants with pods close to maturity.

A good soaking rain storm has put a halt to transplanting for a couple days. That's not really a bad thing, since it will give the late sprouting "Bird Egg #3", "Uzice", and adzuki beans time to size up.

Given that you southerners (relatively speaking given my location 😉) have a longer & hotter season I think there is a lot of promise that you'll collect seed, particularly if you have a nice summer with favourable weather. While I do find beans a bit more challenging than tomatoes for collecting seed, a wonderful quality of beans is you can still mature the seed by harvesting slightly immature plants. I love that feature. Technically I guess you might be able to get away with that with tomatoes, but I haven't tried it because one of my seed vendors practices that method and I do find her germ rates can be low for tomatoes; I've always suspected that was because of immature harvesting. @Bluejay77 Your beds are fabulous! I look at your gardens and marvel at how you achieve such perfect alignment! I can barely get the beans straight in a 6 foot row....

 

[Boilergardener]

@bluejay I have a Question:
The Network Senate soup Navy and Evolutie beans seem to be throwing runners, but they are labeled as Bush beans. Is this abnormal? I was thinking maybe they were just lon

g between the nodes but now i think they may be semi runner or something. The Evening Moon semi runner hasnt really grown any of those yet either for me to compare too. Thanks!

 

[Blue-Jay]

@bluejay I have a Question:
The Network Senate soup Navy and Evolutie beans seem to be throwing runners, but they are labeled as Bush beans. Is this abnormal?

My website says and my spreadsheets says Senate Soup Navy is a semi runner. So that would be normal. Evolutie is a bush on my website and spreadsheet.

The Evolutie could be Throwing runners because it was crossed with a pole bean. Perhaps I should set a rule that if you are going to grow network beans. You either grow all pole and semi runner beans or only bush beans. There are people that grow both and I don't know how far they separate them or if separated with enough flowers between the bush and climbing types to reduce the possiblity of outcrossing.

Now are all the Evolute plants throwing runners? If the answer is there are bush types growing also. Then I would say take a hand shear and go down to the soil line and clip off all the Evolutie beans that are throwing runners and leave only the true bush types bloom and produce seed.

 

[meadow]

Perhaps I should set a rule that if you are going to grow network beans. You either grow all pole and semi runner beans or only bush beans. There are people that grow both and I don't know how far they separate them or if separated with enough flowers between the bush and climbing types to reduce the possiblity of outcrossing.

What do you consider to be adequate spacing? All of my seed-saving beans are separated by at least 20 feet, but it never occurred to me that bush vs. pole would make a difference.

 

[Boilergardener]

My website says and my spreadsheets says Senate Soup Navy is a semi runner. So that would be normal. Evolutie is a bush on my website and spreadsheet.

The Evolutie could be Throwing runners because it was crossed with a pole bean. Perhaps I should set a rule that if you are going to grow network beans. You either grow all pole and semi runner beans or only bush beans. There are people that grow both and I don't know how far they separate them or if separated with enough flowers between the bush and climbing types to reduce the possiblity of outcrossing.

Now are all the Evolute plants throwing runners? If the answer is there are bush types growing also. Then I would say take a hand shear and go down to the soil line and clip off all the Evolutie beans that are throwing runners and leave only the true bush types bloom and produce seed.

Thank you for the information. The picture i attached of evolutie must be the farthest along plant and possibly long internode or the trifoliate hasnt come out yet to make it seem "like a bush" . It may not end up sending runners, I see no runners that will attach as of yet. i set up a fence tonight quick. i just thought it worth mentioning as i had senate soup navy that is labeled as bush and was confused when i saw runners. If the evolutie does send runners i will remove those plants per your instruction. Evening moon hasnt really thrown runners yet compared with this senat soup navy bean, must be a later maturing bean? All other beans are performing well and we have not gotten a drop of rain in probably 2.5 to 3 weeks. Hot and dry beans are doing well. No diseases yet and have been watering them

 

[heirloomgal]

This year I have a separate bed for each growth type; they aren't super far apart because my yard isn't huge but they are still in their own areas. The poles and semi- runners are a bit closer, but the bush beans are quite a ways away. That said, I think I have one of those gardens where there isn't much crossing going on anyway. I thought I may have had a cross in one of my saved pole bean seeds last year, but it turned out to just be a bunch of reversals.

If I did start to see crosses in the beans I think I might reconsider growing runner beans. That is one bean species that seems to always have bees on it. I love the flowers on runner beans, but they really do have a powerful attraction for bees and who knows where else they might visit while in the yard.

 

[flowerbug]

this year i've only knowingly planted one pole bean (Anasazi). i have planted some that are semi-runners, but i'd be happy if those ended up crossing with the bush beans. a few of what i planted i don't know for sure what they are but likely they are bush or semi-runner. i didn't give the bees too much chance this year to mess with habit.

 

[Blue-Jay]

What do you consider to be adequate spacing? All of my seed-saving beans are separated by at least 20 feet, but it never occurred to me that bush vs. pole would make a difference.

I don't really know what adequate spacing would be. I'm not sure anyone really knows. The amount of bee activity has a large bearing on the subject of bean crossing too. The less bee activity the less likely you will have crossing among varieties, and some varieties are more prone to being crossed than others. Probably growing plenty of flowers between different bean types might help dilute any foreign bean pollen from one type to the next. Back in the 1970's I was in a library and found a book on bean seed production. It stated that seed companies that grew fields of different varieties of beans for seed. Would separate their fields by at least one mile. I do know that the climbing habit is a dominate trait over true bush. If only true bush beans are grown near each other I think it's mainly seperating new seed coats if they appear in a variety. A true bush that crosses with a true bush will still be a true bush. I think the climbing habit can be transmitted fairly easily to bush beans then then the resulting climbers that show up in the group can do more spreading of that growth habit.

The Evening Moon is another semi runner bean.

Irigated beans with no rain actually are the most disease free beans. All your large seed companies like W. Altee Burpee grow their beans for seed out west in more arid climates and irrigate their fields. It's the lack of the plants being wetted frequently by rain water and having contact with damp soil that promotes disease in beans.

 

[jbosmith]

What do you consider to be adequate spacing? All of my seed-saving beans are separated by at least 20 feet, but it never occurred to me that bush vs. pole would make a difference.

I isolate 3 varieties per year for seed and do experiments in a separate community garden plot. My closest two varieties that I'll replant are 400 feet apart, and the most isolated from those is 44.61 straight-line miles away! Ok, fine, I'm sure there are other beans somewhere in there, but I don't get to eat those, so they don't count.

ETA: I suspect the 400' is drastic overkill and wasn't intended as a suggestion. It's just how the two gardens line up.

I'm skeptical that bush vs pole makes a huge difference in crossing of P. vulgaris varieties beyond blossoming time. My Jacob's cattle beans are already blossoming where none of my pole beans are even close to thinking about it, so it'll be hard for those to cross.

Irigated beans with no rain actually are the most disease free beans. All your large seed companies like W. Altee Burpee grow their beans for seed out west in more arid climates and irrigate their fields. It's the lack of the plants being wetted frequently by rain water and having contact with damp soil that promotes disease in beans.

This is probably true of drip irrigation but I would imagine that center pivots, etc. have the same disease problems as crops that get rained on? We get around 36 inches of rain and 100 inches of snow each year, so it's admittedly not something I know a lot about.

 

[meadow]

I've noticed that the Lazy Wife's Pole Bean is doing remarkably well, considering that it was started in the same manner and timing as the other green beans. The difference is that it is adjacent to a cement walkway (in a flower bed in front of the house being used as an isolation bed). I suspect the cement is providing reflected heat and light.