2020 Little Easy Bean Network - An Exciting Adventure In Heirloom Beans !

[flowerbug]

By this time they are not your children, more like great, great, great, times 547, great grandchildren! LOL

well they are Robert Lobitz and his cohorts and people before them who got them to me via Russ. i have only grown them for three years now and as i keep working with them it's been good to see what's happened.

when i have a new cross show up, then that is one of my children but i also consider it a child of nature since the bees and plants are the ones doing the toughest part. i'm just observing and selecting results and then sending them off to others who would like them.

i also have to note that those box flats above that are full of beans came from the original beans Russ sent me three years ago. i've kept the other samples he sent me separate so i don't get them all confused. the first year they did well and i loved the purple flowers and the habit of the plant. i didn't eat too many fresh beans from those plants because i wanted the most seeds i could get for further growing the next season.

i had a good harvest and i could work forwards much more easily now having more seeds.

when i planted those the 2nd season plants we had enough for fresh eating, enough for me to harvest the seeds and give away about 30 samples, plus plenty left over to replant for this past spring (several thousand plants not counting the reserve seeds i have set aside Just In Case).

so the above seed are from the third year's growth and not counting of course all the ones we ate fresh and as shellies and dry beans. i still have a pound or two (from 2019) in a container on a shelf that will get some selected out and the rest cooked.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2020 Bean Show - Day 10​

Gila River - Pole Dry. The beans in the photo are my entire 2020 crop. I built a raised bed box to plant pole beans in this year and every pole bean looked stunted for half the season. I think it was because the way we messed with the soil. Lots of grass roots in it that raised bed that we buried. The Gila River wound up just loaded with pods and started to develop seed in them but the plants just took off and grew too late this year. I got a about two pods that had some nice seed in them. Will grow them out again next year.

Great Lakes Special - A Robert Lobitz original named bean he realeased through the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook about 2 decades ago. One of my favrorites of his original beans. A little bit later than many of the bush dry beans but always produces well.



Gila River......................................................................Great Lakes Special

Gold Creek Trout - Bush Dry. Another of the Lobitz Legacy beans. The bean last time I grew it looked sort of like a flesh toned Jacob's Cattle. I grew all the bush dry beans in my large 80 variety plot this summer in a soil that is more of a clay type top soil. I think this bean is soil sensitive as most of the white on the bean became very subdued. First photo is how the bean looked in 2017 grown in a lighter loamy soil. Second photo is the 2020 grow out version.


Gold Creek Trout - 2017...........................................................Gold Creek Trout - 2020

Greencrop - Bush Snap. One of the old commercial snap beans I grow that was popular in the 1960's. Somewhat flattened and long stringless pods for a bush type.


Hemelvaartboontje - Pole Dry. Acquired from DeaFlora seeds in Germany in 2013. Produces a nice abundant seed crop. Just not this year. Popular bean with the people who come to my website looking for beans. I need to do another grow out next year.


Greencrop......................................................................Hemelvaartboontje

Hemelvaartboontje Off Type - Found this bean this past summer.


Hemelvaartboontje Off Type 2020

 

[baymule]

I sure am enjoying the Bean Show! All so pretty.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2020 Bean Show - Day 11​

Hodson Wax - Bush Snap. Another variety that didn't do so good in the seed making area. I think the dryness hurt a bit. First offered to the public by the Harvey Seed Company of Buffalo, New York in 1902. The variety had resembled Hodson a green podded bean, and may have been a sport of that variety. Listed by the Henderson Seed Company in 1906, and by 1921 was being sold by over 100 seed companies.

Idaho Refugee - Bush Snap. Growing in the same garden patch this bean produced lots of seed this year although smaller in size. It was very dry here this summer. Idaho Refugee was bred by Walter Pierce and J.C. Walker. A mosaic resistant bush type released through the University of Idaho, and an All American Selections winner in 1934. This variety was one of the first BCMV resistant varieties created as the result of deliberate breeding. Parentage is Corbett Refugee and Stringless Green Refugee.




Hodson..............................................................................Idaho Refugee

Illinois Snap - Bush Snap. Green podded, black seeded. One of my original named beans that has been around now for about 41 years. Large seed for a snap bean. I sent some to a fellow in Washington state to try. He was a Jade grower most of the time and he told me he thought Illinois Snap had Jade beat in the flavor department.

Improved Kidney Wax - Bush Snap. This is one of Calvin Keeny's orginal beans. Seed looks similar to Brittle Wax. However Brittle Was was released in 1900 and Improved Kidney Wax released in 1906.


Illinois Snap.................................................................Improved Kidney Wax

Irish Connors - Pole Snap. Obtained this bean from Annette Barley of Nanaimo, B.C. Canada. Ken Connors born in Ireland in 1898. His family emmirgrated to Boston in 1900 and moved again to New Brunswick, Canada in 1907. Eventually making their way to, and settling in the Vancouver B.C. area. All the while growing and taking their bean with wherever they went. The Plants have white blossoms and flattened 7-8 inch long pods. For the eating quality of this bean. They have an excellent beany flavor. Stringless when young, but you can not let the pods get too advanced in seed development. At this point they become stringy.


Irish Connors

 

[Tricia77]

Russ's 2020 Bean Show
Day 8
​

Drayer Creek - Bush Dry. One of the Robert Lobitz Legacy beans. This one stablize right from the start. There were three rounded oval beans in a seed packet when I first acquired all the Lobitz legacy beans. This white one, a solid black one and a solid brown one. The black one also stablized quickly and is now Black Oak Lake. The brown one is Zumbro Valley. They all have the same identical pod type. Probably the result of the same cross.

Eden Prairie - This is a Robert Lobitz orginal named bean. Very pretty. I have not gotten a good crop of it in about 6 years. The beans in the photo is the entire harvest from this year.


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Dryer Creek...............................................................Eden Prairie


Eagle Bend - Bush Dry. Another Robert Lobitz legacy bean I named after Eagle Bend Minnesota. The bean does seem to be stable but I'm going to give it some more grow outs to make sure. The first photo is first dry beans of this one of the season. There is not prominent eye patch. It takes several weeks for the eye patch to develop as seen in the second photo

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Eagle Bend.................................................................Eagle Bend


Eden Valley - Bush Dry. Another of the Robert Lobitz Legacy beans. This is a segregation of the rounded solid brown Zumbro Valley and this one stablize pretty quickly. It has the family resemblence of the similar seed shape and pod shape.

El Rosa - Yet another of the Robert Lobitz legacy beans. I named this bean after El Rosa, Minnesota. Not yet stable and I'm wondering if it ever will. It keeps producing two other seed coats each season. Last photos are also the two El Rosa off type seed coats.

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Eden Valley...................................................................El Rosa

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El Rosa Off Type 1.................................................El Rosa Off Type 2

I love the look of El Rosa!

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Tricia77,

You should put your bean photos on here each season too.

El Rosa is a very pretty bean. Just wish it would settle down and stablize. I will keep after it. When I grew El Rosa in 2018 I only have one photo of an off type a solid light red bean. In 2017 I have no off types photoed with El Rosa. Perhaps I didn't photo them.

 

[Duane1966]

I have been reading thru both the 2019 and the 2020 easy bean network pages. I have learned a lot. Right now I can only think of one question. Let's say I request and receive 6 different beans from the network. I grow out those beans and they all seem true to type. I send back my seeds and all seems well. The next year I grow those same 6 beans and 2 of them give me off type beans. How do I know if those off type beans are due to the original bean not being stable or if they crossed with one of the other beans that I was growing?

 

[Duane1966]

Flowerbug, Just wanted to let you know I loved your pics of Purple Dove in the box lids. Especially the darker ones, they look amazing.

 

[flowerbug]

I have been reading thru both the 2019 and the 2020 easy bean network pages. I have learned a lot. Right now I can only think of one question. Let's say I request and receive 6 different beans from the network. I grow out those beans and they all seem true to type. I send back my seeds and all seems well. The next year I grow those same 6 beans and 2 of them give me off type beans. How do I know if those off type beans are due to the original bean not being stable or if they crossed with one of the other beans that I was growing?

you won't really know 100%, but @Bluejay77 aka Russ has a pretty good idea of the beans that he's been growing for years as to how stable they might be. since some of the beans are grown by other people you may not really know what other beans they were grown around or to what extent they practices isolation techniques so you just kinda have to hope that of what was sent you that you will mostly get what you requested. all IMO.

because i plant a lot of unstable beans i get a lot of unusual things to talk about so i'm pretty sure my posts in these threads misrepresent the experience of a lot of others who do not aim for the results i do.

i think i've grown about 50 network beans by now (i haven't kept a total exactly) and only one threw off an out-cross the first year it was planted and it wasn't all of the beans planted that did that but only one bean from the seeds supplied.

in a pretty stable bean you may not see crosses show up easily. i have a few beans here that i've not seen a single out cross in yet (even if i've been intentionally mixing things up) - like in my third year of PD beans and not a single odd bean yet that i'd consider anything showing an out cross.

have you done any reading on genetics?

 

[flowerbug]

Flowerbug, Just wanted to let you know I loved your pics of Purple Dove in the box lids. Especially the darker ones, they look amazing.

if you want to give some a try PM me your address and i'll send some out.