2015 Little Easy Bean Network - Old Beans Should Never Die !

[VA_LongBean]

So I can't post photos from Facebook here huh? Okay.

 

[flowerweaver]

Out of 115 kinds of beans, I report that the LEBN specimen, Imbotyi Chaphaza, which was planted later than the others was one of the first of two to bloom and put on pods! It has a sweet pink flower. The Nyimo beans are doing OK.

So far the Imbotyi Chaphaza is only 6 inches tall, but then almost all the beans seem stunted because we have only had about a day of sunshine and cooler temps than normal in a month.

Who would have known we would receive more rain in a month than the past several years combined! We are officially out of the 5 year drought. I have not had to run the irrigation at all. Weeds, which usually aren't an issue, are rampant. As soon as I can I will have to deal with them. I plant most things in the troughs, so everything is waterlogged. The bean leaves are a bit yellowed but they all seem to be hanging in there. About half of the bush beans have bloomed and are making pods.

I haven't been able to check them daily and take notes because of heavy rains and flooding, which has been making national news. I am cut off from them off and on by this:

I keep asking DH to build zip lines!

Our road is still closed at both ends. At one point the water was 14 feet over this crossing. There is a long back road out.

Today, which looks like the rest of these unusual May days:

So that the beans are trucking along through all this is very good news!

 

[so lucky]

Wow, @flowerweaver, I am amazed that anything is surviving with all the rain and flooding. That is great to hear!

 

[flowerweaver]

@so lucky The winds have flattened my tomatoes twice, and I've just stood their cages back up. They are so spindly and with big fruits that look like ornaments on a Charlie Brown Christmas tree! I missed the window to plant squash and melons because it was just too mucky to work the field. Drought, tornado, flood --so far just another sorry year for the garden I'm afraid! Hoping if the sun ever shines again the beans will perk up. I still have five months of growing time ahead.

 

[Hal]

@so lucky The winds have flattened my tomatoes twice, and I've just stood their cages back up. They are so spindly and with big fruits that look like ornaments on a Charlie Brown Christmas tree! I missed the window to plant squash and melons because it was just too mucky to work the field. Drought, tornado, flood --so far just another sorry year for the garden I'm afraid! Hoping if the sun ever shines again the beans will perk up. I still have five months of growing time ahead.

Your season sounds like mine, well switch the tornado with record high temperatures and you have mine.
Have you got any Tepary beans in?

 

[flowerweaver]

@Hal, I have a few short rows in the field that are doing well. However, I'd also planted some as an experiment down in the creek like the Puebloans do, and they washed away in the flood. I will replant them once I know we are out of flood danger. The soil is so saturated here any amount of rainfall will cause another flood. I read that enough rain has fallen to cover the entire state of Texas (which is huge) with 8 inches of water!

 

[Hal]

@Hal, I have a few short rows in the field that are doing well. However, I'd also planted some as an experiment down in the creek like the Puebloans do, and they washed away in the flood. I will replant them once I know we are out of flood danger. The soil is so saturated here any amount of rainfall will cause another flood. I read that enough rain has fallen to cover the entire state of Texas (which is huge) with 8 inches of water!

Wow that is a lot of water alright! I hope your beans dry out enough to make them happy.
What flower colors have you observed in Tepary beans so far?

 

[PhilaGardener]

I also received from another member of Seed Savers Exchange in late April. The remains of the beans that Robert Lobitz was working with before he passed away in 2006. The beans had been in the hands of an SSE member in Kansas and he has gotten rather frustrated working with them so I got a hold of them from him and I will give them a try.
I'll plant 18 different ones out of those. I also split these Lobitz beans with a young fellow in Kentucky who wants to be a bean breeder. I met him one morning in early February when I got an email from him after he discovered my website. He is a high school student. His parents were plant breeders for the Cargill company from the early 1970's to the mid 1990's. So by the end of this season I hope I can say it's bean and interesting summer.

Is there a detailed summary somewhere of Lobitz's work and accomplishments? He seems almost unknown in many quarters.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I had been wondering about our Texas members of this group. So nice to hear from you @flowerweaver. I'm wondering about Baymule as well. Just glad you are safe. People have lost their lives in these Texas floods. The rains have effectively wiped out the 5 year Texas drought. The recent weather forcast I've seen is for a dry period to settle in. It's odd for me to read about beans that I have sent out blooming and setting pods when I haven't even planted yet here. Anyway hope Bay is ok in her new home.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I have not seen any actual summary on Robert Lobitz, but I know he originally had a big potato collection when he began his membership in The Seed Savers Exchange around 1982 or 83. He and his father were truck garden farmers in the Paynesville, Minnesota area. I became inactive in SSE myself during the 90's and first decade of the 2000's, but became aware of a lot of his bean listings beginning with the mid 1990's SSE yearbooks. I had taken a trip to Heritage farm in 2011 and spent time in their library lookng through 1990's yearbooks going through the bean listings. I had noticed a goodly number of listings by Robert Lobitz and new beans that he introuduced through the SSE in these yearbooks. I then began finding many small seed companies on the internet that sold some of Roberts beans. I realized he had gained quite a reputation in the Seed Savers Exchange. Then when I ran across bean growing people through the internet that had known of Robert's beans in Europe you could see that he was not just your average seed lister in those SSE yearbooks. At least that was my impression. sea-kangaroo and I have a mutual friend in Liebenfels, Austria that was very aware of Robert Lobitz's beans. Even Hal in Australia knew of Robert's beans.

If you go and Google Robert Lobitz beans you will find all kinds of links to seed seller websites and other little articles on Robert Lobitz. Even the Burpee Seed Company sells Robert Lobitz's bean called Red Swan. Unfortunately Robert passed away at the age of 65 on January 12, 2006.

I have a copy of an interview of Robert Lobitz sent to me by the Kansas SSE member who I got all these Lobitz crossed beans from. The interview was done by a Minnesota SSE member Jim Tjepkema. If you would like to see that I can scan it and see if the text will be ledgeable as a jpeg when posted here.