2016 Little Easy Bean Network - Gardeners Keeping Heirloom Beans From Extinction

[VA_LongBean]

For your viewing pleasure, representative seedlings of the following:

Passage to India,
Orange Speckled Paiute Tepary,
Botosani Cyclop, and
Large Chocolate Tepary

Left to right top to bottom on the pictures apparently.

They're so cute at this age! I've reexamined the rows and all of the Botosani and Chocolate have come up. All of passage to India are up too, but I have lost between 2 and 3 of the Orange Paiute. There are enough seeds left to cover those holes and then some. They are all doing so well I wish I still had room to plant the remaining seeds in the main garden.

If you look closely, some of them are already starting to send up their little stems.

 

[Tricia77]

All 7 of my Brown Star Gold Band seeds germinated!!!! I'm very excited to be growing this bean.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Tricia77,

I saw the photos of the Brown Star Gold Band seedlings on Heirloom Bean Addicts Anonymous. They look very nice. Do you have a good success rate transplanting beans from those little plastic cups?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Russ, how sure are you of the growth habit of the numbered beans? I assume you haven't grown them yourself so you are relying on others' bookkeeping or maybe it's the nature of the outcross, but #27 and at least one segregation of the #32's is sending out runners. I don't know if they are half-runners or pole beans but I'll give them something to run on as they show a need. After all that drama with the mold I have at least a few plants from all my segregations. I was sweating a couple but so far they all came through. It's interesting how different germination rates and growth is for segregations of the same numbered beans. For instance what I'm calling 32B has smaller leaves than the other 32's. And my 39B had excellent germination compared to my other 39's.

The Kutasi Princess and Malawi Pinto were listed as unknown growth habit on your webpage. Both are obviously pole beans. I got perfect germination and am getting vigorous growth from both of those.

I'll try to do a decent write-up on all these varieties and segregations when I send them back to you. I can see why you got hooked on beans, it's kind of exciting.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Ridgerunner,

Yep you hit the nail right on the head. I am going by what was on the packets on the numbered beans when I got them from Will Bonsall. I am supposing that the seeds came from plants that had those growth habits he had marked on his packets. Some of the beans could have crossed with bush types. Some of the bush types could have crossed with semi, half runners or even pole beans. It is as you said sometimes the nature of the outcross. Last year some of the ones I had planted and expected bush growth types from I got runners growing out of some of them.

I'll change my records on the Kutasi Princes and Malawi Pinto. I'll list them as pole types.

Yes beans are beautiful, usefull, and interesting to see what they are capable of.

I got a segregation from a semi runner bean that when I grew it out it was a true bush. I was surprised to say the least because this semi runner had put out all sorts of segregations and every single one of them grew with runners on them. The runner habit is dominant over a true bush type so that is why I expected a semi runner out of this particular segregation. Also this bush segreation also did not throw off an segregations from itself and every seed I put in the ground was a stable bush bean.

 

[Tricia77]

@Tricia77,

I saw the photos of the Brown Star Gold Band seedlings on Heirloom Bean Addicts Anonymous. They look very nice. Do you have a good success rate transplanting beans from those little plastic cups?

This is a first for beans. I use them for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and squash. It has always worked fine.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

@Ridgerunner,

Yep you hit the nail right on the head. I am going by what was on the packets on the numbered beans when I got them from Will Bonsall. I am supposing that the seeds came from plants that had those growth habits he had marked on his packets. Some of the beans could have crossed with bush types. Some of the bush types could have crossed with semi, half runners or even pole beans. It is as you said sometimes the nature of the outcross. Last year some of the ones I had planted and expected bush growth types from I got runners growing out of some of them.

I'll change my records on the Kutasi Princes and Malawi Pinto. I'll list them as pole types.

Yes beans are beautiful, usefull, and interesting to see what they are capable of.

I got a segregation from a semi runner bean that when I grew it out it was a true bush. I was surprised to say the least because this semi runner had put out all sorts of segregations and every single one of them grew with runners on them. The runner habit is dominant over a true bush type so that is why I expected a semi runner out of this particular segregation. Also this bush segreation also did not throw off an segregations from itself and every seed I put in the ground was a stable bush bean.

Speaking from my personal experiences, I think another factor may be that it seems that some beans (PARTICULARLY some of the African ones) seem to be what I would call "conditional runner" That is they develop runners or don't based on the environment. Generally, if there is something nearby they can climb on, they will often develop runners and after that behave in a pole like manner. However if there is no such surface rather than doing what one would expect a runner or pole to do with no support (flop over on the ground) they will branch and behave like a bush bean (though often a rather short one, which may indicated a preference for being a runner.)

 

[Blue-Jay]

Backyard Bean Nursery​

I just had my backyard fenced. So no rabbits, and no deer. I can propagate a fairly good number of beans that have small numbers of seed and get the volume up before I risk trying to grow them in my rural beds where deer are a potential hazard. This single backyard bed is currently growing 24 different outcrossed bush beans that I discovered in my larger rural plots in the past 4 years. These were the beans I had deer eat the heck out of last summer in 2015. This is a 12 x 24 foot bed and each bean gets 6 feet of row space. Grass mulching of this bed will be done soon.

The Backyard Pole Bean Nursery ​

This narrow bed up against the back of the house facing west is growing 10 pole varieties included in the grow out is two of the WB-PKT numbered beans . Each pole has only one variety planted to it. Grass mulching of this bed will be done soon

Beans In A Pot In The Backyard​

These are beans the I haven't grown in 35 years. They are an original bean I discovered in my Capron, Illinois garden among Black Turtle in 1979 and named Red Turtle. They are a semi runner with medium solid red seeds about three times the size of Black Turtle. Very productive and have healthy plants. I had often grown two red bush varieties in the same season as the semi runner Black Turtle beans. Which were Red Mexican and Low's Champion. So very likely that one of those beans is the Male parent of Red Turtle. Seed Savers Exchange has had this bean in their collections for many years but decided this year to delete this bean from their collections for the lack of enough stewardship. Which is another way of saying that the bean wasn't listed in the yearbooks enough seasons to warant keeping in their collections. SInce I was the donor of the seed they offered to give me all the seed stocks they had of this bean so of course I took the entire lot of seed. I have two 20 foot rows of Red Turtle planted in a rural location this year. These beans you see in the photo have germinated from seed stock SSE had from 1991. The bean is stable and does well in a fairly wide range of areas of the country. This bean also stablized very quickly during early 1980's grow outs.

More photos of my 2016 bean grow outs will follow as plants emerge from the soil and develop some growth. I have two rural locations to take some pictures of in the near future.

 

[Smart Red]

Neat setup there. Isn't it a relief to know your beans will be safe? At least until the Japanese beetles and June bugs come to the party.

 

[journey11]

My charges have been photographed, logged and tucked into damp paper towels.

One groundhog was dispatched today. Another was spotted, but got away. I reset the trap. The electric is up, but I'm taking no chances. WB-PKT #49 is a 2 seed sample. Nail biter!

ETA: Happy to report the other ground hog threat has been neutralized!