The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[journey11]

Question... Do any of you guys inoculate your beans before planting? I haven't before, but I recently read about the benefits and was thinking maybe I would this year.

I've got my planting list worked out and as the weather allows, they'll gradually go in throughout this week. I've got 39 varieties going in the ground this year, bulk plantings of some that I will be canning and most are smaller samplings of grow outs (many new-to-me from Marshall--thanks again. )

Russ's beans for return and Marshall's Powder Stars will get 2 plantings each (I took a page from your playbook, @marshallsmyth . ) and one of those sets will go in my front raised bed which is the garden equivalent of Ft. Knox. My big garden is electrified this year too, so the deer are out of luck.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Journey,

I have never innoculated my beans, but go ahead and try it and let me know the results when you pull up an old spent plant later in the season. I'm guessing that domesticated beans today may have lost their ability to fix nitrogen on their roots.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hey Marshall,

Remember that violet looking bean that I sent that I said came from Junin last year? Well the shortest wave length of sunlight is the violet color. How about we call that bean Shortwave Sunshine.

 

[Smart Red]

I like that if anyone is interested in MHO!

 

[897tgigvib]

I like that name Russ!
Shortwave Sunshine it is then.

Oh boy I have a Bean jungle starting already. I've already used up 100 feet of fencing making mostly 8 foot tall bean cage/poles. I think one more roll of it will do the trick. Photos of those will come soon.
Some of the bush beans are making runners, mostly those that "may run", but even some that should be bush are too. So I made a few 4 foot tall bean cage/poles for them.
I made some 5 foot tall ones for the Limas. Horn's Speckled sure have pretty 2 tone leaves. Some others do too, but the Horn's are especially nice.

2 of the Lila Stuart bush beans are definitely running.

Oh! Those Falcon Outcross are most definitely running. Do you suppose those got outcrossed by pollen from something like Tennessee Wonder? That one will be SUPER INTERESTING to see how they segregate. It may be a subspecies cross.

Making these bean pole/cages took top priority, and I have not been getting soil for that last bed I framed last week. Plus I had a busy Memorial day weekend with all the campers.

@TheSeedObsesser the bush Cannelinni beans are making tall and vigorous runners. Those coccineus species beans do cross readily with each other. I sure hope they set pods.

Some of the African Premiere outcrosses are running...

It's a BEAN AND BERRY JUNGLE starting!

 

[Blue-Jay]

HI Marshall,

Interesting stuff you report on the outcrosses. I got all my bush beans finally planted as of monday noon. Now we've had about 2 inches of rain and I got to wait till the soil dries out a bit to get the pole beans planted. It will be a litte bit of a wait now for me to see what some of these same outcrosses do. I'm not surprised about the Falcon outcross. It was running for me last year as well. I got Falcon from a Seed Savers Exchange member Mary Fox in Indiana. Unfortunately I can't ask her any questions about what she might have planted near Falcon, as Mary passed away last year in February.

It might be hard to tell what crossed with what looking at the seedcoat. I have a book on bean collecting. It written for collectors who go out in the wild and collect wild beans. They reported on some deliberate crosses that were made with white seeded beans. When they crossed two white seeded beans they got mottled seed coats. They deduced that often times white seeded beans are carrying dominate genes for mottled seed coats. When they cross the two they pair up those dominate genes and get that mottled seed coat. The white seed coated bean had been selected for it's recessive genes that produced the white seed. Their conclusion was that many white seeded beans are motted beans masquerading in a white seed coat. So you just never know the genes that any of these beans might be carrying. They are probably capable of all sorts of colors and patterns.

Lila Stuart was described in the SSE yearbook last year as a pole bean, and also in John Withee's Wanigan bean book as a pole bean, but last year it didn't even grow any runners for me. I wonder if my Lila Stuart was one of the pole beans that a deer ate the tops off last year, and only made me think it was a bush bean. A related variety to Lila Stuart. Lynnfield was listed in the 2013 SSE yearbook as a bush, but grew such long vines. I'm sure it would have climbed as high as the rest of my pole beans. John Withees bean book lists Lynnfield as a Pole bean. I had grown both of them back in the early 80's. I have an old list of my bean collection from the 80's and I have pole typed next to both of these beans. Will have to try Lila Stuart again with pole supports next time I grow it.

I have planted two of the African Premiere outcrosses. The one with the glossy seed which is red with purple speckles on it. Also the other I called Wondermere. That one did have runners on it last year, but I don't remember about the other one. I will get to see what they do for sure soon.

 

[897tgigvib]

I'll try to make some kind of "field notes" on all the varieties sometime in the next few days. How each has been growing so far. The Lila Stuarts that are in the first planting will get a cage/pole 4 foot 4", but past that I'll have to do some fanaggling with their vines and probably some tip pinching. They are on a bed near the edge of the front section of my garden and there's not much more height room than that, but they'll be fine pinched back to half runner height I'm sure.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When they crossed two white seeded beans they got mottled seed coats. They deduced that often times white seeded beans are carrying dominate genes for mottled seed coats. When they cross the two they pair up those dominate genes and get that mottled seed coat. The white seed coated bean had been selected for it's recessive genes that produced the white seed. Their conclusion was that many white seeded beans are motted beans masquerading in a white seed coat. So you just never know the genes that any of these beans might be carrying. They are probably capable of all sorts of colors and patterns.

Interesting. White in chickens feathers works much the same way. There is one white gene that is dominant. If it pairs up the chicken is pure white, but if only one of that gene pair is present you can get various results. You'll still see an effect, but what that exact effect is will depend on what other genes are present. For example, you may get a red chicken with a white tail instead of a black tail. There are also different versions of that dominant white gene. Instead of pure white, some of them may give you a smoky or khaki color.

There is a recessive white gene that is extremely powerful if it matches up. If it matches up, that chicken will be solid white, no matter what else is there genetically. But if only one is there, it has not visible effect at all. Pair up, it can mask about anything but alone, it is nothing. But if you cross a white chicken with that recessive white to a non-white chicken, there is absolutely no way to know what is hiding under that white. You get all kinds of surprises.

That dominant white is pretty easy to breed out of your flock since it always has an effect. That recessive white is extremely hard to eliminate. It can hide for generations before you get a pure white chicken out of nowhere.

Sounds like bean genetics are just as complicated as chicken genetics. Unless you have good knowledge of the parents genetics, it's like opening a box of chocolates. You never know what might show up.

 

[897tgigvib]

...now if we can only find that gene that makes beans taste like chocolate when ground...

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

@marshallsmyth

I'm glad that they're doing well for you. The Cannelinnis were supposed to be a coccineus, so I would think that they'd make runners.

How are your adzukis doing?