2018 Little Easy Bean Network - Join Us In Saving Amazing Heirloom Beans

[Blue-Jay]

Wax beans and the one's with the brown eye patch have been around for quite a while. Wax beans are said to be one of the oldest grown types of bean. D. M. Ferry & Company first made Golden Wax available in 1876, billing it "Ferry's Golden Wax. I ran into one link on the internet that has Top Notch as a synonym name for Golden Wax. So Top Notch may have been around for a very long time. Maybe for marketing purposes Golden Wax was called Top Notch.

Here's a little of the breeding history of Puregold.

Puregold:
Breeder and vendor: Rogers Brothers Seed Co., Idaho Falls, Idaho. Parentage: Brittle Wax x Wisconsin Hybrid Wax 536. Characteristics: dark green foliage, golden wax pods, straight, round, smooth stringless pods. Resistance: bean mosaic virus1 and 15; tolerance to curly top. Adaptation: wide. Canner, February. 1947.

 

[Zeedman]

hopefully the really big gap of drylands will help keep them out... i wish everyone the best of luck with them for sure. i can't believe that the birds haven't figured out yet to eat them or why. they don't fly fast and are very easy pickings in the morning...

There must be something unpleasant about them, to explain why birds don't eat them - because they are certainly hard to miss. On my pole beans, the beetles nearly always settle near the very top of the vines. I think that is how they search for mates... I've watched the beetles hover over the vines, then land near other beetles. The bright metallic coloration might be for that purpose.

 

[flowerbug]

this article has a lot of interesting references and topics of interest to a bean grower.

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/vegetables/heirloom-bean-varieties-zewz1302zsch

 

[flowerbug]

There must be something unpleasant about them, to explain why birds don't eat them - because they are certainly hard to miss. On my pole beans, the beetles nearly always settle near the very top of the vines. I think that is how they search for mates... I've watched the beetles hover over the vines, then land near other beetles. The bright metallic coloration might be for that purpose.

something does eat them when i scatter them at the end of the driveway... that is one reason why i use a very very weak soap and water solution (like one drop of soap per container). to drown them.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Here is an old catalog with a nice cover. Not as much of a selection of beans that Burpee had but some variety names in beans you don't see around anymore. It's the Farmer Seed & Nursery Co. from Fairbault, Minnesota catalog from 1928.

"Lima Beans"
Fordhook Bush Lima
Burpee's Improved Bush Lima
Henderson's Bush Lima
Seibert's New Early Pole Lima
King Of The Garden

"Bush Wax Beans"
Faribalt Kidney Wax
Prolific Black Wax
Improved Golden Wax
Davis Kidney Wax
Surecrop
Unrivalled Wax
Wardwell's Kidney Wax
Webber Wax
Early Wonder Wax

"Bush Green Snap Beans"
Full Measure
Masterpiece
Burpee's Stringless Greenpod
Bountiful
Red Valentine

"Dry Beans"
Red Kidney
Great Northern
Robust Navy

"Pole Beans"
Early Golden Cluster Wax
Burger's Stringless Greenpod
Kentucky Wonder
Scarlet Runner

 

[flowerbug]

a quick report from the bean patches.

as noted before JBs love the Purple Doves, but today i could see the progressive damage difference and there is a big preference for it compared to almost any other bean i've grown. enough so that i could use PD's as an attractant/trapping crop. the beans are however very purple and the plants and flowers too. i'm going to keep growing these. i sampled one bean today to see how they tasted as a fresh/snap bean. very sweet and edible. i don't know why they would say only use as a dry bean for this one. will not be able to cook any up for that test until next year when i will have more seeds/plants to work with.

the other thing i like about them is that they are also among the early beans here compared to some of the others, and also bush in form/habit.

i should get a some pictures as right now with a lot of the foliage eaten back but they are still blooming heavily it makes for an interesting contrast.

in other bean related news... i picked the first round of wax beans from a few of the usual Top Notch plants and as usual i ate quite a few while i was picking... it was getting a bit too hot out there so i retreated with my red peppers and fresh beans back to the house and then had to clean/prep the peppers. the beans i'll prep and steam lightly later.

i really have to check on all the other beans to note which are the early ones and which are coming along for later. not today. if i do get back outside i gotta focus on the weeding or it will never get done (not that it will anyways, but...). it's a good thing that nothing here is critical and needs to be immediately done (i did that already ).

p.s. quick squall going through now so i'm not going back out to weed today. yay. i needed an afternoon off.

 

[Michael Lusk]

A question about patents (I think). How would you find out if a seed you are growing is patented / held by a seed company? I'm not concerned about Monsanto et al. coming after me, it's more a curiosity (but David versus Monsanto is some scary stuff if you've never seen it). Is there a way to tell if a plant is a variety essentially free to all versus some company's property?

There are a couple of beans I purchased from Seed Catalogs (Park Seed, I think) maybe a decade ago which I save and grow yearly because I like them. I think the ones you order from an organization like Seed Savers are intended to be 'recycled' but not sure.

I'm not sure it would stop me either way, but I'm interested in knowing if there's a way to know the difference and I thought you guys may know. Thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not a lawyer and I don't grow patented plants commercially so bear that in mind. I'm pretty sure there is a legal requirement for the person selling that seed or plant to tell you if there is a patent on it. I've seen labels on some that tell you that you are not allowed to reproduce it but I can't remember if that is from seed or from cuttings or some other method of cloning.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Michael Lusk
A question about patents (I think). How would you find out if a seed you are growing is patented / held by a seed company? I'm not concerned about Monsanto et al. coming after me, it's more a curiosity (but David versus Monsanto is some scary stuff if you've never seen it). Is there a way to tell if a plant is a variety essentially free to all versus some company's property?

I have three lists of beans you can look through . So what you want to look for is PVP beans. Stands For (PVP) Plant Variety Protection. They will show the original year of the PVP, and that is also probably the year the bean was released. Then they will show the PVP number usually at the end of the beans description. It's hard to tell if the PVP is still in force however the third link I'm going to give you is the USDA seed bank website in Pullman, Washington. The site can be slow so be patient. In the upper left corner of the page put your mouse on Accessions. Then Search-General will appear below that. Click on that. You can type in any variety name in the box and it will bring up that beans name and accession number if the bean is held at Pullman. Likely it will be. Click on the beans Accession number in the left column and it will open to a page that might contain Intellectual Property rights. That will tell you when the PVP was issued and and a date that it expired if it actually did. This Pullman site is probably kept pretty much up to date.

Other things you can do with the Pullman site is go down to the lower left side of the page and click on species held at this site. Then another page opens and go to Phaseolus Vulgaris. Click on that and you will go to pages upon pages of accessions numbers with the varieties names. There are about 13,549 accessions you can look through. Some beans do not have a variety name but just a number. So that is another way you can use this site if you have the time to browes.

So here are the links to the bean lists you can look at. The First list is beans A-L and the Second one is M-Z. Third link is the Pullman, Washington seed bank.

1.) http://cucurbitbreeding.com/todd-we...escriptions-for-north-america/bean-green-a-l/

2.) http://cucurbitbreeding.com/todd-we...escriptions-for-north-america/bean-green-m-z/

3.) https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/site.aspx?id=26

 

[Michael Lusk]

@Michael Lusk
A question about patents (I think). How would you find out if a seed you are growing is patented / held by a seed company? I'm not concerned about Monsanto et al. coming after me, it's more a curiosity (but David versus Monsanto is some scary stuff if you've never seen it). Is there a way to tell if a plant is a variety essentially free to all versus some company's property?

I have three lists of beans you can look through . So what you want to look for is PVP beans. Stands For (PVP) Plant Variety Protection. They will show the original year of the PVP, and that is also probably the year the bean was released. Then they will show the PVP number usually at the end of the beans description. It's hard to tell if the PVP is still in force however the third link I'm going to give you is the USDA seed bank website in Pullman, Washington. The site can be slow so be patient. In the upper left corner of the page put your mouse on Accessions. Then Search-General will appear below that. Click on that. You can type in any variety name in the box and it will bring up that beans name and accession number if the bean is held at Pullman. Likely it will be. Click on the beans Accession number in the left column and it will open to a page that might contain Intellectual Property rights. That will tell you when the PVP was issued and and a date that it expired if it actually did. This Pullman site is probably kept pretty much up to date.

Other things you can do with the Pullman site is go down to the lower left side of the page and click on species held at this site. Then another page opens and go to Phaseolus Vulgaris. Click on that and you will go to pages upon pages of accessions numbers with the varieties names. There are about 13,549 accessions you can look through. Some beans do not have a variety name but just a number. So that is another way you can use this site if you have the time to browes.

So here are the links to the bean lists you can look at. The First list is beans A-L and the Second one is M-Z. Third link is the Pullman, Washington seed bank.

1.) http://cucurbitbreeding.com/todd-we...escriptions-for-north-america/bean-green-a-l/

2.) http://cucurbitbreeding.com/todd-we...escriptions-for-north-america/bean-green-m-z/

3.) https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/site.aspx?id=26

@Bluejay77 Thanks for the information, this is really interesting!