2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

[ruralmamma]

I'm second-guessing the Coal Camp beans as I'm now suspecting they could possibly be the September Blue. I reserved a few of the original seeds as backup and pulled them out today and though similar, the Coal Camp just isn't that vibrant. To make matters worse, I looked the variety up from a local seller and his picture shows the bright blues. They were planted side by side and both varieties are very vigorous because I have one huge tangle of vines along with a volunteer cucumber in the mix. I thought I'd identified which plant it was coming from earlier but this evening's effort to trace the vines resulted in losing track of the vine numerous times before I gave up. Definitely need to work on wider spacing next year.

Oh and my reserved seed of Avalon appear to have the same variation as what I'm harvesting.

 

[Decoy1]

With common beans you oftentimes find traits mirrored in populations on both sides of the Altantic. Exceptions to this generalisation are the shiny 'greasy' beans from the Appalachians and these curved Kipfler beans which appear to be exclusively clustered in regions around the Alps.

Interestingly there doesn't appear to be any varieties with this phenotype from the Americas, and they are absent from Europe more broadly, except in this limited area. What piques my interest is the obscure reason as to why?

Did the trait arise in the region? Is there a genetic linkage between the genes for curved pods and a particular adaptation that makes them thrive in a that particular climate? Why did it not travel further? Were they selected simply because they satisfied the human penchant for the aesthetically appealing, or did they serve some other purpose before the rise of modern agriculture? Are curved pods a chance mutation of a single gene, or is pod curvature something controlled by multiple genetic factors that take generations of rigourous selection to reach such extremes?
Alas, I'm now hypnotised by the spirals
I need answers, but I do not need another bean project

Interesting. I’m wondering about the curly podded/Kipfler strains. I have the impression that the term kipfler is sometimes used specifically for a small number of variations from the Austria alps and sometimes used more generally for a larger number of curly beans from the wider alpine region. I’d be interested to hear whether that matches other bean growers understanding.

This season, by chance, I’m growing two curly podded varieties. Anellino di Trento is from the Italian alps so conforms to the broader use of the term kipfler. Sultan’s Gold Crescent, though, whose curliness I mentioned a week or so ago seems to have hazy origins but is usually assumed to have emerged in US it seems. If so, it’s perhaps an exception to the limitation of curly pods to the alpine region?

 

[flowerbug]

perhaps it's just a reference to the curly hair of the Northern Italians (and like in our case the curly red hair)? i dunno. always interesting these beanos...