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- #741
Blue-Jay
Garden Master
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- Jan 12, 2013
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Glad I could add something different. Will Bonsall gets the credit though, I just grew it. That was so unusual I didn't know if they were even healthy so I did a germination test on three of them. All three very quickly produced very healthy sprouts. I did not try eating that one but others from the original #27 produced some snap beans. That one was not hugely prolific but it wasn't bad. I did not keep the beans picked off either, just let them go to seed. The pod was fairly short but not bad. The pod was solid green, but turned reddish as it dried. I did not get any photos.
First I thought I'd give a little info on one of the beans you mentioned that had not been on my bean show this year. Rwanda Rainbow was sent to me this summer by my young bean friend in Kentucky who attends college at Austin Peay state college. He's studying to be a plant breeder. No doubt by the name it comes from the African continent. He describes Rwanda Rainbow as a pole bean with a natural mix of colors. I wonder if any of those would grow true if seperated long enough. Perhaps they have all been planted and grown together for so long that they have cross and back crossed many times with each other that it would not be possible to seperate them, but then again you never know.
I wonder about the part about Tranquility or any of the outcrossed beans that came from Will Bonsall when you say '"Will Bonsall gets the credit though, I just grew it". I'm not sure he gets all the credit or any of it. Will relinquished the ownership of those beans when he sent them to me. Will has told me he really doesn't care to grow out and work with outcrosses. If I had not received them from Will he would have just let the seed age and die away. We would have never known what possiblities they had contained. Now former Seed Saver Exchange member Robert Lobitz had received a bag of outcrossed beans from Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds in Canada and divulged that fact, but goes on to state with those beans. That they were beans he named and developed. So I think those of you who did the grow out and named those beans. I'm going to give you the credit as those being your original varieties. We know what the seed mother was of all those beans and I know who named them. You have put in the time and energy to care for them, and I think you should have the credit. Plus just think of all the time you will continue to grow and care for them in the future.