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

[jbrobin09]

I’m really surprised you didn’t have great results with Amish Gnuddle (I’ve seen it as Amish Nuttle here). It’s a super hearty pole (about 4-5’ tall sounds right) for me with heavy production. Ripens early, and I even had some seeds that dropped into the soil in the fall that made it through the winter and sprouted in spring! And we get -30C and colder.

I’ve been growing it for many years and it’s a favourite. I have not yet cooked with it though- did you have enough to try some?

 

[Triffid]

The great beans of the late Robert Lobitz are discussed here frequently; I was hoping someone might be able to help me with info on one of his accessions. Not a bean, but a pea.
RL is cited as the introducer of 'Golden Sweet', having liberated it from the USDA genebank. My question is what is the original genebank accession?

 

[flowerbug]

The great beans of the late Robert Lobitz are discussed here frequently; I was hoping someone might be able to help me with info on one of his accessions. Not a bean, but a pea.
RL is cited as the introducer of 'Golden Sweet', having liberated it from the USDA genebank. My question is what is the original genebank accession?

thank you for asking the question. i'm not sure i can supply an answer but i see another mention of something i read right by the last time i looked (in the Seed Saver's Exchange article by Jim Tjepkema):

Hope and Practice: Robert Lobitz - SeedSavers

Longtime Exchange lister Jim Tjepkema shares the seed-saving and seed-sharing story of the late Robert Lovitz in the Hope and Practice series.

seedsavers.org

and this is important to me because it means that even if i could find out more information about Purple Dove it is likely i would still only have one of the parents as the pollen could have come from any of his beans he was growing.

"By the early 1990s, Robert no longer offered any potatoes in his SSE seed listings and instead began offering a large number of beans, including many that were new varieties from his own breeding program. He reported, in a comment included with one of his listings, that bees cross pollinated bean plants for him. Beans are self-fertilizing and do not cross pollinate; plant breeders cross pollinate them by hand to develop new varieties. However, bees will sometimes break into bean flowers that haven’t yet opened and pick up some pollen which they will spread to other bean flowers that haven’t yet opened. Robert looked for beans that came from crosses made by bees, grew out this seed, selected the best beans from these grow outs, named them, and offered them to the public."

i'll see if i can find anything else on-line but i'm guessing that you've probably already seen everything i'm likely to find.

 

[heirloomgal]

Green Albufeira is a bean I last grew in 2019 but I remember liking it very much. My notes say,
Dry. Not brilliant for shelling. OK for snap but tends to get too big quickly.
Albufeira is in the Algarve
A very high yielding variety, with big heavy green beans, not yet tested for stringiness. A later variety that needed time to mature.It has larger pods and is also a big, strong plant. Was bought from a market in Albufeira

Thank you so much for this @Decoy1. It's funny you mention the Algarve because every time I've tried to dig up some information on this bean the 'Algarve' bean came up! Which is a pole bean. So interesting that this bean does in fact come from that area even though it is not the specific Algarve bean. Your description is exactly my experience too. Next grow out I really have to try it as a green bean!