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

[Ridgerunner]

@Bluejay77 I don't have any dried beans yet. I think that's when it will get really interesting. You and I may have some long discussions then. I'll probably have a few different shipments to you to try to keep it straight. Maybe all the #32 segregations bagged separately but in one shipment. A separate shipment with the #39's. I kept one bean of most of the segregations so we can tell what the bean I planted looked like. Not all of them but most. I'll return those to you also in a separate bag and clearly marked with the appropriate shipment.

So far my weird ones are the #27 - a bush that are all growing as pole, #32A - some growing as bush and some as pole, and #39A - a pole that are not only all growing as bush but I have two different bloom colors. #38 is a pole that is growing as a pole but it looks like I have two bloom colors, a light pink and a white. They are all on the same trellis and pretty close together so I may have trouble knowing which beans are from what color blooms. I'll try to get at least some of them separately. My #32 B, C and D and #39 B and C segregations are all doing as they should, but I don't have dried beans yet.

I have noticed on my 39A pink bloom plant, some pods have purple markings, some are solid green. That's on the same plant. So far all the pods on the 39A white blossom plants are solid green.

I do some stuff with chicken genetics, crossing different chicken breeds and especially chicken crosses. That should have prepared me better for crossed beans. You can get some really strange stuff in the second generation and later when you cross chickens too.

I suspect there are several different genes that affect bloom color. Do you know a general dominance progression on bloom color? Recessive genes are pretty easy to isolate, dominant ones really hard. That may help me decide which of these I want to grow out again next year.

 

[Blue-Jay]

That is true dominant characteristics are more difficult to select for. The colored blossoms are dominant over white. White being the recessive blossom color. I don't know about which shades of pink or mauve might be dominant over each other. Maybe you can follow the vine for the white blossomed plant and wrap around the stem after the pod has well formed with a little piece of masking tape or plastic electrical tape. Then you at least know which seeds came from the plant that had the white blossoms. Just a suggestion. That might be a lot of work but it can be done if you feel lilke it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have two trellises of the #38's, over ten plants total. These germinated well. Two look white-blossomed and are marked with the others are all clearly pink so I can get different seeds. I'll just have to be careful. They are intertwined a lot. My problem is more being sure there there really is a difference in color/shade. Sometimes I look at the whites and say, yep, clearly white. Other times I think I can see a tiny hint of pink in at least some of them. I've noticed on some of the ones that are really dark pink that sometimes they are not quite as dark as at other times. I get confused really easily.

It may not be whether they are pink or white but there is some modifying gene that makes some of these really pale compared to the others. That happens a lot with chickens. You can have a base color, say red, that is pretty straight forward. They are either red or they are not. But there are so many different genes that modify red that you can get all kinds of different shades of red. I'm probably over-thinking it on a rainy day when I wanted to be outside doing something else.

So if I want to select one where blossom color has stabilized I need to select white blossoms. I won't know that the others have clearly stabilized until I grow them a time or two. I don't always go the easy route. In chickens you don't say a dominant trait has stabilized until they breed true for five generations unless you do test breeding to confirm it. Even then you occasionally get surprises. Test breeding is easier with chickens than with beans. Is there a rule of thumb for how many generations beans have to breed true before they can be considered stabilized?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That is true dominant characteristics are more difficult to select for. The colored blossoms are dominant over white. White being the recessive blossom color. I don't know about which shades of pink or mauve might be dominant over each other. Maybe you can follow the vine for the white blossomed plant and wrap around the stem after the pod has well formed with a little piece of masking tape or plastic electrical tape. Then you at least know which seeds came from the plant that had the white blossoms. Just a suggestion. That might be a lot of work but it can be done if you feel lilke it.

What I did this year was to wind a piece of colored yarn around the stem of each bean plant (different color for each one) to track which plant goes where so as to make sure that each seed that comes can be tracked back to it's respective plant . Maybe that would work for someone else.

 

[aftermidnight]

I have a numbered tag at the base of each plant, most of mine are turning out to be bush beans, one of the poles #45-1 is definitely a flat podded wax bean. The vine topping out at 7'. Didn't take a picture of the pods yet as the first ones are right at the bottom of the vine and are curved where they touched the side of the raised bed.

#45-1 seed germinated, before planting.


It's flower.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Beans can be considered true breeding if they don't throw any off types for three generations.

 

[baymule]

It came a very light rain this morning, so I rushed out to pick beans! I picked 3 beans from the Botsani Cyclops and got 7 seeds. There are more beans on the vine, but not a lot. I picked a handful of beans from the Globula and got 60 nice seeds! They are on plates on the dining table to dry. The Globula is loaded down with beans. If they keep this up I will be able to send you a lot more than 60 beans.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @baymule, That is super Plantastic about the beans especially Globula. I would definitely look forward to try growing that one myself next year. Have you tried one of the pods? Steam one or two of them up and see if they leave any strings in your mouth when you chew it up. If they steam up tender might be good for snap bean use. If you can. Take a picture of one of the Globula's loaded with the pods and post it here.

 

[aftermidnight]

I tried to add a picture to #45-1 but it wouldn't let me so here's a pic of the pod, not the best but you get an idea what the pods look like, has 7 potential seeds.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, Was that pod also yellow in it's snap stage, or is it yellowing now because it's getting ready to dry mature seed? Maybe a black seeded wax bean? That pod in your picture looks very large. Is this the bean you are going to call Chase River?