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

[TheSeedObsesser]

Makes me think that if I wanted to keep my bush dry beans (from Andean gene-pool) from crossing with my bush snap beans (Andean gene-pool) I could just plant a thick row of some sort of pinto/ojo/etc in between them (Mexican gene-pool).

 

[Hal]

After watching a few youtube videos and doing some reading, seems to be a whole lot like crossing peas through hand pollination, except for the keel is more fragile. I think that I'll give it a try next year.

Also remembered reading something interesting over on HG about there being two different gene pools of bean (Andean and Mexican) and crossing between gene pools usually not working. I'll see if I can find the thread for you.

I agree it is very much like crossing peas which I can do with ease as I have been breeding peas for a bit and you're right beans are just more fragile but a good pair of forceps or such helps.

I would be interested in that information about the two gene pools, maybe there is a particular cultivar somewhere that could bridge the gap but has not been tested/discovered?

 

[897tgigvib]

I read on another site some time back, so don't recall which website, that there are 5 subspecies of Phaseolus vulgaris, and that those 5 were grouped as 3 types in one subspecies, and 2 types in the other subspecies.

What separated them mostly was the moment of domestication, and that varied by a few thousand years.

That crosses between the subspecies varied by which group one subspecies was being crossed with which group in the other subspecies.

The White Robin Outcross does appear to be a result of one of the more difficult subspecies cross pollinations.

Each plant is different. One plant made White Robin looking seeds, and seemed to be an upright bush plant. Another made Magpie looking seeds, but variable in markings, and somewhat smaller. That one was by far the most productive, a pretty much classic half runner.

But the third plant, growing the same way as the second one, made a good number of smallish to medium sized pods 4 to 5 inches long, and those pods were purple to black. Thing is, almost every one of them was empty, just tiny little black aborted shrivelled seedlets in them.

The plants around it did not do that. That plant appeared healthy as the others around it. It was being what's called PARTHENOCARPIC, just like seedless grapes or watermelons.

Finally toward season end a few pods are being made with a few half way decent seeds in them.

My hope is that this may be a POLYPLOID EVENT. Nature does that. Shuffles the chromosomes around if the pollen parent has a different number of chromosomes than the seed parent.

IF, that's a longshot if, if these few seeds do sprout, grow, flower, and make seeds a TETRAPLOID plant is then made.

(((Yea, this polyploid stuff is complicated, and takes a lot of coffee to understand)))

Tetraploids like that have been known to be the start of new species. Especially among the Brassicaceas, the cabbage family, but also in a lot of other plant families, some more, some less.

Some of your big ole whopping potatoes are tetraploids.

It's natural, and is NOT a product of dr. Frankenstein doing mad scientist cacklings at midnight in transylvania in an old castle...

Thunder bolts, dark shadows of trees, bats flying in your face...

Nawp, none of that. No evil corporations manipulating genes, sticking scorpion genes into apples to create poisoned apples...

But, tetraploidy is relatively rare in legumes and fabaceae, far as I know. Chances are these few seeds won't grow or won't make seeded plants. I don't know.

Anyone know about any tetraploid bean vaeieties?

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Just catching up on this thread. I lived in Saratoga for decades, watching the cots being sun dried and the zuc fields being plowed under to build Marriotts Great America. Now in Angels Camp, where the heat is hot, the water scarce and my postage stamp of a plot is liked by the deer.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

But, tetraploidy is relatively rare in legumes and fabaceae, far as I know. Chances are these few seeds won't grow or won't make seeded plants. I don't know.

Anyone know about any tetraploid bean vaeieties?

Love to say "yes" but I don't think I have. The closest thing I can think of was a few years ago, when I was wandering around the dried bean section at a Japanese supermarket. I found these small bags of black soybean that were ENORMOUS (we're talking nickel to quarter size!) And bought one to try and plant. However when I pulled the seed coats of a few sacrifices to check the color of the insides (with a black skin you can't really guess from the outside, and green innards is just as common (if not more common) in black soybeans in Asia as yellow.) I realized WHY they were so big. I doubt they were polyploidy, but it appeared as if someone had done some sort of genetic jiggery-pokery to make them poly-embryonic, or more accurately poly cotyledonous. Their insides were a mess, with four of five six or more cotyledons inside, all folded over on each other and the embryo radicle so twisted in most cases its tip was actually pointing back INTO the seed. I saw quickly that they were unlikely to grow well (and I was right, few even made sprouts and those were malformed and died before getting their first true leaves.) Though it does make me wonder how the GROWERS got seeds (maybe every now and again there is a seed that is sufficiently normal as to make it as a viable plant and they are productive enough to allow the growers to still make a profit.)

 

[baymule]

I hate to make this post because I have to own up to abject failure. I hate failure. I chose the Bambarra beans and the Jugo beans because they require a very long growing season. I figured I probably had one of the longest growing seasons, besides living in the Keys of Florida. Out of just about everybody else on this forum, I thought I would have the greatest chance of success. Phooey.

Page one of this post, top row of brightly colored beans, second from the left, is the Bambarra Nut bean. Page one, 4th row, 3rd from the left is the Jugo beans. I planted them April 30, 2014 and dug them October 12, 2014. I got nothing. Nada. Zip. Not even one bean. I put off digging them as long as I could, giving the beans all the time that I could. I had researched them on the net and read everything I could find on growing them. The vines grew well all summer, thriving in the heat. The vines started dying back and it was time to dig them up. I found nothing. I sifted every grain of soil, looking for anything that might possibly be a ground nut bean. They just didn't form. They weren't there.

I am so disappointed. Russ, I sure wish I had Bambarra and Jugo beans to send back to you, but I got nothing. Not even one durn bean.

The sleeper in the bunch is in the Jugo bean picture which @Pulsegleaner nailed as being a pea and not a bean. In the top of the Jugo bean picture is a red pea. Well, let me tell you, that ONE pea took off! It was growing on the side of the house where it grew in all directions. I had to keep lifting the vines and putting them back in order, but the vines took about a 12' x 15' space. From ONE pea! It took awhile to start bearing, but it produced and is still loaded with peas right now. The leaves are yellowing and falling off, the vine is winding down, but it is still flowering and making peas.

So since I can't tell you how I grew a bushel of Bambarra and Jugo beans, I will tell you all about this mystery red pea. The flowers are lavender color. The pea pods dry and have a disconcerting habit of falling off, so I tried to pick them before they got completely dry. They are difficult to shell. I have shelled many a bushel of peas, but these darn things don't want to give it up. When dry, the hulls are practically shrink wrapped. When green, the hulls are glued on. When in that in between stage, yup, the hulls come off in small pieces. I dried a lot of peas, then thought, well maybe I need to actually EAT some of these so I can report about the taste. I just boiled them with a little salt, to judge the flavor. They were delicious.

This one pea vine was not coddled, not regularly watered and not fertilized. We did not have a dry year, so there were rains that helped. I can see where this pea would have value in a dry, hot climate. If nothing else, it could be planted for soil improvement and allowed to grow, then plowed under for green manure. It grew so thickly, that it smothered out the majority of weeds and grass, so could be planted as a ground cover, rotating crop on fallow ground.

Would I plant this pea as my main pea crop? Nope. It is the devil to shell and there are easier peas out there to get from the garden to the pot.

So, @Bluejay77 are you a pea collector? Since I don't have beans to send back to you, would you like a bag of peas?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, I warned you Bambarra's can be a tricky crop. I've only known two people who got ANY seed back (not that I know that many who tried). One was in Australia, and they only got back 4 seed (out of 8 planted). The other one god a decent crop, but they were in Belize. So I'm not really sure any blame is justified. Your tried, it didn't;t work, I'm sure the ring will move on.

As for the tight coats, that happens sometimes with cowpeas. If I was to hazard a guess I'd probably say that, in Africa, this variety of pea is probably not so much shelled as threshed. They probably toss handfuls of the pods into a big standing mortar and whack it with a big pestle for a while then toss it in the air to pull off the chaff (like they do for sorghum). Or maybe they do like the old pioneers used to do to shell their beans and peas en masse, put them all on a big tarp in the barn and then have all their neighbors come and dance on them. The picture doesn't really give me a clue about how BIG the pods and peas are, but if they are on the smallish size and tend to dry hard and tight (i.e. the seedcoats don't go all papery and crack and flake off when the peas are dry) I'd say this is likely.

P.S. If you are looking for a name for this new variety, may I suggest "Inkosi Umhlaba" According to the google translation engine that's Zulu for "Land Master"

 

[baymule]

@Pulsegleaner you did warn me that Bambarras were tricky. But I thought I might have the best shot at success due to the climate here. That's what I get for thinking.......

I can definitely see doing the stomp dance on these pea pods! The seed coats are tight and hard and the peas are slightly smaller than a dry black-eyed pea. The dry peas are more rounded in shape than the kidney shape of black eye pea. Haha, I thought I was giving lots of info on these peas, and you got me! The pods are about 6-8 inches long!

I am used to shelling purple hull peas, crowder peas and cream peas, they are EASY compared to the "Inkosi Umhlaba"

 

[Smart Red]

@Bluejay77, I got the last of the African beans harvested today. The pods are not all that dry, but I feared a frost would get them before I did, so up they came to dry under shelter and away from the cold.

Once these are dried enough, I'll get all 4 (5?) varieties back to you. SOON!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

@Pulsegleaner you did warn me that Bambarras were tricky. But I thought I might have the best shot at success due to the climate here. That's what I get for thinking.......

I can definitely see doing the stomp dance on these pea pods! The seed coats are tight and hard and the peas are slightly smaller than a dry black-eyed pea. The dry peas are more rounded in shape than the kidney shape of black eye pea. Haha, I thought I was giving lots of info on these peas, and you got me! The pods are about 6-8 inches long!

I am used to shelling purple hull peas, crowder peas and cream peas, they are EASY compared to the "Inkosi Umhlaba"

Actually apart from pod color, these peas look a lot like the Torukhiave cowpea Richter's sellshttp://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=X9392 Maybe they're closely related (we don't know where in Africa the seed came from originally, maybe it traveled a bit before making it to SA)

I actually have a bit of cowpea news of my own. Harvested my last pod of the season. Didn't mean to but it fell off. What you gonna do? The seed is a little immature, it doesn't even have it's pattern yet (assuming I remember my plating correctly, if mature the seed should be white to tan with fine purple/black speckles. I think all of the cowpeas in that patch were. ) But I'm saving it and hoping at least one is viable because I made another surprise. After shelling out the seeds, out of curiosity I scraped a little of the insides off and tasted them (I was outside, and didn't want to have to go inside to wash the pod, so I decided the inside which had only just been exposed would be the most sterile.) To my astonishment, this one is really sweet, deliciously so (especially when you consider I ate it raw) Assuming I can get it to survive, I think I actually have something here. It'd be the first really GOOD cowpea I found in my own test growing since Coals in the Candle (black seeds, plump wax white pod).