2 New Bean varieties are appearing in my garden

[897tgigvib]

Just changed my signature to have the photo of this first new bean to appear.
I'm calling it NOVA STAR for now. Often beans with this form of marking are called as one of the Mayflower or Flor De Mayo, or Star names.

Last year one of my Mayflower Beans produced a single Bean in one pod that was very huge for the variety, and in the other pods on that plant the seeds were also extra large. Mayflower is a cutshort bean usually used as a dry bean. I've been selecting them for years to make more consistently cutshort pods and larger seeds. Last year I saved some of the seeds from that plant separately, and planted 4 of them this year. Two of them sprouted and grew. Next to each other in the north bed. One is making normal Mayflower beans. The other is making these Nova Star Beans.

I am always very skeptical about any possible Bean crosses or mutations, but also hopeful. It is after all, more likely that one of "the bigfoot kids" snuck into my garden and planted some bean that even Marshall has never heard of nor seen.

Thing is, in my Sallee Family White Greasy patch I have found just yesterday, another possible cross

 

[897tgigvib]

Does it look to be part Hutterite and part Mayflower?

 

[journey11]

We'll have to stay tuned 'til next year then to see what happens! That is the fun part about saving your own seed. Here's hoping your desired trait will follow through.

ETA: I have some hutterite seed in my fridge, so I ran to take a look. Except for the shape and the long white star, it does otherwise resemble it. Not familiar with the Mayflower though.

 

[897tgigvib]

I have two separate strains of Hutterite. One is the common bush form, the other is a pole Hutterite that does make most of its pods low and then produces a second flush of production higher up the vine. These two separate strains are from separate accessions. The bush form I got from Seed Saver's Exchange about ten years ago, and the pole strain I only got last February from a friend who happens to live next door to Tierra Madre Farm in Windsor California, which she got from them, and I got from her in a 27 variety trade.

Mayflower I also got from Seed Saver's Exchange years ago. It is a pole bean, cutshort, small pod. Round, except for the typical cutshort indentation on 1 or 2 sides. Off white with a very beautiful "star" splash on the hilum side edging toward one side or the other, that is a beautiful shade of red, and stays red in all stages of dry.

I'm not sure if this is an F1 or an F2. I think it's an F1. The seed it grew from was a good twice as large as a normal Mayflower seed.

Hybrid Phaseolus vulgaris Beans are so rare that I don't know what crossing does to the seed that results from the cross. I do have several kinds of bumblebees, several wasps, yellowjackets that enjoy stinging, wild honeybees, hoverflies, horseflies, deer flies, hummingbirds, and other assorted critters that visit flowers, including some rare butterflies.

As I understand and believe, intentionally crossing Beans just about requires a surgeon and a nuse assistant, scalpels, forceps, focussed light, magnifying specs, but I also hear tell from an ole Rastafarian from Jamaica-Mahn, that beans over there do get crossed more often because of a unique cutter bee they have. Sometimes on hot days the bumblebees, especially the kind with less yellow fur on it, really do get vigorously active on flowers. I like bumblebees, and I even pet them sometimes with my fingertip. I've never been stung by one.

 

[hoodat]

Hang in there. There is no telling how many great varieties have been lost due to gardeners not following through and keeping a new line alive. As soon as you can, spread a few of the beans among gardening friends. This will help insure that the line will not be lost if some catastrophy hits your own bean crop. You can go back to your friends and get a new start if that happens.

 

[digitS']

Here's Wishing You the Best of Luck, Marshall.

This must be how seed savers work these things out - share seeds and get information out to a wide audience.

I've wondered how I might sort things out with some tomato varieties. What else could one do?

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh Digit, Tomatoes! whoooooooooooooooo

I used to have 150 varieties and dozens of F1's, and gadzukes of F2's of Tomatoes! When I moved from Montana, one of my seed boxes accidentally got left there. TGhen I got a job for a short while growing wheat for wheatgrass juice, and the boss wanted me to grow 4,000 tomato plants of my varieties. She wanted them all mixed up, not even labelled! Wellp, some of the seeds spilled, so I grew a few to sort them out.

Know how hard it is to tell a well grown Ceylon from a Costoluto Genovese? A Siletz from a Legend? Volkov from Czech Market...anyhow, I got most of them sorted. I think next year I'll grow more tomatoes than this year's 2 plants. One is Big Rainbow, the other is a volunteer hmmm so far...maybe my "Safeway Market Cluster", either red or yellow not sure yet. I've been selecting those off and on for years.

Sorting seeds to varieties takes more space than usual. The plants can't be allowed to get tangled together so you can tell them apart. SHARPIE pen is your friend, and use extra big labels, 1x2 pine, extra long pounded in deep. That's what I'll be doing with these puppies next year. Fewer vulgaris, more acutifolium.

 

[897tgigvib]

These are definitely going in my garden this year.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hey Marshall !

As long as you are speaking of new beans I thought I would post something here where everyone interested in beans can take a look at another bean website I came across recently. You can click on all the names and dream about having all these varieties growing in our gardens. I think the site is located in Germany. Enjoy and and have fun on this one .
http://www.bohnen-atlas.de/sorten/e/176-engelsbohne