The Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans Varieties Nearly Free

[MontyJ]

Glad you are happy Russ. I'm going to cook some of the winterfare next weekend. I'm hoping to get enough tobacco patch to make a batch of baked beans in the near future. I have already shared out some of the seed to other growers so perhaps these two varieties will again begin to thrive. I would be happy to grow again next year. Perhaps Marshall will once again pick two varieties for me, one bush and one pole.

I do have a question for you though. I did a Google search for Winterfare. The only listings I could find for it was yours, and the thread here on TEG. Is that seed that rare, does it go by a different name, or is it one of your own crosses? I will grow it again since it is obviously true to seed, but would like to know the heritage if possible.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Monty !

The seed of Winterfare was sent to Will Bonsall who is a SSE member who lives in Maine. The bean was sent without a name to him by an unnamed source. So Will gave the bean this name. I wish I could tell you more. If I ever come across more about it's history I will let you know.

My garden has another month and a half to go before it gets put to bed. I will shred all the dead plants with my lawn mower and till everything under. This will happen probably the last half of October.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Marshall !

I just picked my first dry pods of Nova Star Yesterday. I'm getting a lighter colored seed like the one you sent me, and I'm getting a darker brown splashed seed. No black seeded ones so far. The one with the darker brown coloring reminds me a lot of Logan Giant. The pods are a little smaller than Logan Giant. I think you are getting something similar to my darker brown splashed ones. Now to figure out weather this bean is a dry bean, snap bean, or multi purpose. I think I had a deer nibble on Nova Star just a little earlier in the season, but the plants repaired themselves and grew quite nicely there after.

Marshall's Smyth's "Nova Star" as Grown In Illinois Summer Of 2013

 

[897tgigvib]

Russ, the photo on the left shows beans very similar to one of the 6 or 8 sorts I'm getting.

The photo on the right shows more of the star splashings than any of mine, and in brown, so cool!

I will definitely send you some of each of the sorts I got. They truly are acting like F2 hybrids segregating, or maybe F3 if that's the segregating generation in beans.

The sister variety that I did not have enough seeds to send you of last year that I'm for now calling Powder Star, is showing signs of Mayflower in at least one of the plants. I picked a pod while it was still in that late soft yellow stage of ripening, curious what the shelly stage beans looked like in it. What turns on the beans to that soft beigish yellow on it when dry, while shelly staged, looks like a Mayflower with much less red. About half the Powder Star plants are making tight little Cutshort pods, and they look good to eat. Some do that I guess shape to the cutshort pod called tobacco worm. I'll be sending you some seeds of these too.

The Nova Star pods are quite the assortment or me. Some are a medium length, 5" pod mostly cutshort, but nice and fat. They dry tightly wrinkled. Others, the black seeded ones, showed a definite but subtle purplishness to the pods. Nowhere near as much as Rio Zape, but that kind.

=====

From selecting only, another variety, completely unrelated to any of the Stars, Badda di Polizzi Blanca, sorted into at least 3 kinds last year, maybe 4 but I think the kind with extra dots on it just shows up as a natural thing in the other 3 types. One I call Long Seeded, another has colorations reduced to only near the eye that for now I'm calling Soldier type only for the slight similarity of pattern, and the 3rd type is the main type, what they are supposed to look like, kind of half beige and half white and patterned similar to your Killian. Only because of the vague similarity of pattern I'm for now calling that type the Killian type...or simply the main type.

I understand that there is a sister variety for Badda di Polizzi Blanca called Badda di Polizzi Negra that is patterned the same except the beige part on them is a deep brown. It may take years before anyone outside of Sicily has them for growing...

...insert the music from The Godfather...

...because Badda di Polizzi Blanca only escaped because someone smuggled some seeds out of Italy from one of those worldwide food cuisine exhibitions Terra something. They then went the rounds for a few years before some friends gave me literally a handful of them a couple years ago. I was surprised and shocked to find out I have these sure as can be. Even more surprised to find 3 variations among them. They are slow to produce. So far one pod.

These bone dry ripe seeds come out of the pod almost pure white, all of them. When I grew them for the first time last year I thought something went wrong. Looking through my beans to finish filling my garden this year, lo and behold! They colored up! They were the last pole beans I planted this year. I'll get a decent crop. So, they are cure ripeners that color up by planting time.

 

[897tgigvib]

Russ, while I'm thinking, my accession of Black Coco I believe may be very slightly different in growth than most of the others. Not sure of course. Mine grow somewhat viney like an old Indian variety. They are right now putting out their second round of production and after this round they will probably give a few more small pods by late October, healthy viney plants. I will be sending some of these to you also. You may want to grow a few in a next row over near your Black Coco to see if they belong together as simply more variation in yours or perhaps as another selection to keep separate as an older less selected version.

Thinking of black seeded Beans, I'll also send you Allubias de Tolusa, a really nice good sized dry black pole bean that grows good and vigorously, similar in growth to Hidatsa Shield Figure, but definitely wants to be in good light. My forest clearing garden tells me things like that sometimes. This year I planted them north of another row of pole beans and they are slow but coming along. Last year in a good light position they were strong and fast.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Marshall !


After the Nova Star seed is all harvested and dried I'll send you some of the darker brown splashed ones. Still plenty of pods on the plants left to dry. Let me know if there's anything else you want out of the collection and I'll try to send them too.


I think your right about the F3 seed is where all the variations in seed patterns begins with beans. The F1 seed hybrid I think still looks like the mother plants seed, and at that point you still don't know you have a cross. In the F2 seed that the F1 plant has produced up pops the new looking seed. Then after you grow the F2 seed and those plants produce the F3 seed you have various seed coat patterns. Complicated stuff sometimes. I have to stop and think this through sometimes.


I'm growing Black Coco again this year as I was disappointed with my crop in our drought last year. The plants are still true bush form here. No runners or even signs of growing little tendrils at the top of it's growth.

I'm finding all sorts of outcrossed seed in my bean patch this year, but it can't be the result of any crossing that's happened here. Most of the beans I grew last year and this year I'm growing from seed I received from other people and other members of the Seed Savers Exchange. So I'm growing this seed for the first time. I will have to put all the new looking seed photos up on the photo album page after I get everything harvested and shelled.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Im a lot more familiar with chicken genetics than bean genetics but Id think genetics are genetics. The principles should be the same. You start with the parent generation, two different breeds or varieties. Call these P1 if you have to call them something different than Mommy and Daddy. Since beans are perfect seeds and generally self-pollinate without the use of pollinating insects, this is the only generation you need to actually do a cross. Its different with chickens.

The first hybrid cross is F1. Half the genes come from the P1 Mommy and half from the P1 Daddy. If Mommy and Daddy are pure in their breeding, then all the F1 hybrids should look and grow alike. Since the bean P1 Mommys genetics determine what her seed looks like, yeah, the F1 seeds should look like the Mommy. You wont know if there was a cross or not by looking at them. With chickens, you can tell the difference in the chicks, but not by looking at the egg they hatched from. The analogy is the egg they hatched from and the bean they grew from looks like what the purebreed Mommy produces.

The F2s is when it gets really messy. Which gene in that gene pair is passed down is given randomly from either hybrid parent. The F2 generation is the one with the most genetic variety. Those genes can go together in a lot of different ways. Genetically this should be the generation that has the most genetic diversity. But that doesnt mean you can see it. With chickens you can see the differences when the chicken hatches, but with beans you have to plant the seeds and get a harvest to see what is going on.

The F3s is when you start to knock out genetic diversity. When you select an F2 seed to plant, you eliminate the varying genetics in the beans you choose to not plant. You will still have a lot of recessives hiding under dominants that you have to sort out, but each succeeding generation will get more pure genetically until you have something that finally reproduces true. I dont know how many generations that takes with beans since they are perfect flowers and self-pollinate. With chickens that depends on the skill of the person selecting which rooster to breed with which hen. Some of that depends on how much genetic difference there was in the P1 Mommy and P1 Daddy to start with.

The genetic diversity is in the seeds. The visible results are in the harvest of those seeds. Based on this the beans you get when you plant the F1 hybrid seeds should exhibit the most genetic diversity when you harvest them. Marshall, youre good at genetics. Does this make sense?

Russ, it may be the later part of the month before I send them because of a birthday trip then a wedding trip, but I have some Jeminez drying for you. Those three plants I grew produced a lot.


Addendum:

Lets go with two genes, a and b. Purebreed P1 Mommy will have am, am and bm,bm. Purebreed P1 Daddy will have ad,ad and bd,bd. Hybrid F1 will have am,ad and bm,bd, one gene from each parent.

F2 might have:
am,am and bm,bm
am,ad and bm,bm
ad,ad and bm,bm
am,am and bm,bd
am,ad and bm,bd
ad,ad and bm,bd
am,am and bd,bd
am,ad and bd,bd
ad,ad and bd,bd

What these look like will depend on dominants and recessives. You could do Punnett squares to see what the odds of these combinations are.

Now select which of these you want to plant. Ill select:
am,am and bm,bd.

F3 will get:
am,bm and
am,bd. ad is forever eliminated.

There are a whole lot more genes involved than just two, but this should demonstrate the principle.

 

[897tgigvib]

Russ, yesterday evening I went out to my garden into the Powder Star part, and looking closely in them I found an amazing pod. My first true actual PINK TIP. There are a good amount more on the same vine. One small pod with only one seed in it was ripe enough to pick but a couple days from dry, so I picked it. I photographed it and will put it up when it gets light. I opened it and wow! It has a bean in it like your Nova Stars that look like your Logan Giant! That pink tip seems to develop around the late shelly stage.

Now, I was thinking that sometimes a pod will get kind of pink tipped with a few varieties such as Montezuma Red, but this one is, well, I guess this is what a really honest to goodness pink tip is. Some redness going down along the crease, yellowing under the bean, and then the curl at the tip darkens to a fiery pink. I sure hope the photos show it as it is. This plant is making pods and beans very different than the other Powder Stars. I expect the other pods on it to ripen in a couple weeks. The pods are curved more than average and are also bigger on average than the other Powder Stars.

Powder Stars matrilineal lineage comes from the "Sallee-Dunnahoo Family White Greasy" that I received from Janice Dunnahoo 3 years ago when she went back to Eastern Kentucky to visit her kinfolk back there. They gave her some envelopes jam packed with their family bean seeds to grow where she lives in Arizona, and she had so many of each that she sent me some, most of them actually. They included not only the white greasy but also their old white mccaslan, white half runner, and white kentucky wonder. The old family story goes that some were originally gotten by now gone generations from Amish neighbors.

Their White Greasies turned out to be a mix. Most of I guess what were supposed to be the white greasies are not truly completely greasy. There are some white seeded cutshorts in the mix. Some of them are greasy and some are not. Actually I think their white seeded Kentucky Wonder which makes real large pods in the early flush are just about completely greasy.

None that I got from her was had been selected, or hardly at all, and their white greasy variety had developed into a mix, but all the seeds are definitely gloss white. There were so many I still have some of the original seeds she sent. I'll send you some of them too.

back to Powder Star's matrineal lineage. From growing the white greasies the first year and noticing the surprising variations, I saved seeds from the best plants. None of the plants were the vigorous growing pole types but were definitely pole. The next year, last year, one growing among them, from the seed I saved, made the original powder star beans. Not very many. That first year growing the white greasies the Mayflower beans grew vines that mixed all up among them starting a few feet up. Mayflower is actually a cutshort podded dry bean. So I guess Mayflower pollen got onto a white greasy bean flower then. I guess.

Bean crosses done by the bumblebees are surprising and leave one wondering who for sure the father was. And when! But I love the results! Got a pink tip now! I'm thinking that the Dunnahoos and Sallees grew lots of beans, and probably lots of other varieties of beans and also had lots of bumblebees and the darker kind of honeybee called carpenter bees which only have one band of yellowish-orangish hair and a mainly darker body but a honeybee shape to them. I have even more of them this year. Flower diggers!

 

[897tgigvib]

Ridge, what you are saying is just about completely right for Tomatoes I know for sure. The thing with Tomatoes though are the seeds are much smaller and are not very colorful. Yes, on closer looking though, there are definite differences betyween tomato seeds, even color shades. Some are slightly yellowish beige and others are actually a light sage green fully ripe, and some lean toward brown. Some tomato seeds are hard and kind of nutlike barely fuzzy, while others are very fuzzy. Some tomato seeds actually have a ridge like shape around the edge while some don't. All these tomato seed variations are almost not noticeable. Most folks just may notice some are smaller some are bigger.

So yes, with tomato crosses the seeds are barely looked at by most folk. I look at them though.

Just that I'd heard somewhere that beans show their crossed lineage segregations in the f3 generation and not the f2. Add to that, the crosses are done SEREPTITIOUSLY, and who knows when by the bees. And, ADD TO THAT, the bees that do cross pollinate beans do it because they are not just after nectar, but they are also eating the pollen, some of it. So, the pod that is crossed may well only have one or two beans in it because the bumblebees or carpenter bees have damaged it a little by digging in the flower so vigorously. When a pod has but one seed in it, which can be because of lots of other things, watering or rain or heat or who knows why, the single bean is sometimes bigger than usual.

We'll get to the bottom of it! You are absolutely right though about the mendellian aspects of it!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Marshall, if it is something you heard I wonder if someone is getting F2 and F3 mixed up? Thats easy to do.

A little explanation "why" goes a long way to helping me understand it when something doesn't follow logic. I'm an engineer so I'd like to think I follow logic as well as most folks, but I also know that life does not always follow logic. Those things are called exceptions.