2020 Little Easy Bean Network - An Exciting Adventure In Heirloom Beans !
- Thread starter Blue-Jay
- Start date
Zeedman
Garden Master
My bean posts will be few, but I made it a point to take more photos this year.
Berta Talaska, pole snap? - from @aftermidnight . I grew these in pots, and didn't really test the snaps (other than a few snacked raw) since I let all but a few go for seed. The shellies were good & really beautiful, I only ate them when frost threatened to freeze the pods. Seems to have a pretty decent yield, 12 oz. of dry seed from 5 potted plants - and almost no culls.
Canon City, pole snap - from SSE's Heritage Farm. Pods flat, wide, purple speckled, and tasty as snaps, but it would be a waste to use them that way. This was one of the first beans I grew for shellies; and of three similar beans (the others are Bird Egg #3 & Portugal) it has both the shortest DTM, and the highest yield. The beans are very large, shell easily, and have a potato-like taste & texture. Very beautiful pods in shell stage. Harvested 1.5 pounds of dry seed, and a couple meals of shellies.
Champagne, pole snap - from an SSE member in Oregon. Romano-type snap, wide flat green pods 8-9" long. Extremely productive, but hard to get good seed from. It will set more pods than it can support for seed, so much of the dry seed (over 50%) is malformed or under-developed... had 9 oz. of seed after sorting out culls. It seems to have good heat tolerance.
Czechoslovakian, pole snap - another bean from SSE's Heritage Farm. Romano type, purple-podded, flattened 5-6" pods... I thought I had a photo of the pods, but can't find it in my archives. This has been a consistently heavy seed producer regardless of conditions, with very few culls. Like Champagne, it has demonstrated the ability to set pods in the heat, when most of my other beans languish. The plants were weed-choked until the end of July, but still produced over a pound of dry seed. It would probably be on my short list of survival beans.
Berta Talaska, pole snap? - from @aftermidnight . I grew these in pots, and didn't really test the snaps (other than a few snacked raw) since I let all but a few go for seed. The shellies were good & really beautiful, I only ate them when frost threatened to freeze the pods. Seems to have a pretty decent yield, 12 oz. of dry seed from 5 potted plants - and almost no culls.
Canon City, pole snap - from SSE's Heritage Farm. Pods flat, wide, purple speckled, and tasty as snaps, but it would be a waste to use them that way. This was one of the first beans I grew for shellies; and of three similar beans (the others are Bird Egg #3 & Portugal) it has both the shortest DTM, and the highest yield. The beans are very large, shell easily, and have a potato-like taste & texture. Very beautiful pods in shell stage. Harvested 1.5 pounds of dry seed, and a couple meals of shellies.
Champagne, pole snap - from an SSE member in Oregon. Romano-type snap, wide flat green pods 8-9" long. Extremely productive, but hard to get good seed from. It will set more pods than it can support for seed, so much of the dry seed (over 50%) is malformed or under-developed... had 9 oz. of seed after sorting out culls. It seems to have good heat tolerance.
Czechoslovakian, pole snap - another bean from SSE's Heritage Farm. Romano type, purple-podded, flattened 5-6" pods... I thought I had a photo of the pods, but can't find it in my archives. This has been a consistently heavy seed producer regardless of conditions, with very few culls. Like Champagne, it has demonstrated the ability to set pods in the heat, when most of my other beans languish. The plants were weed-choked until the end of July, but still produced over a pound of dry seed. It would probably be on my short list of survival beans.
Last edited:
Zeedman
Garden Master
No; I only had one photo each of Champagne & Czechoslovakian, so I put them side-by-side after the descriptions. That is the same format @Bluejay77 uses for his bean show, so I'm following his lead. You might notice that I also make a point of including the variety name in the seed photo.
flowerbug
Garden Master
No; I only had one photo each of Champagne & Czechoslovakian, so I put them side-by-side after the descriptions. That is the same format @Bluejay77 uses for his bean show, so I'm following his lead. You might notice that I also make a point of including the variety name in the seed photo.
ok, me blind...
Artorius
Deeply Rooted
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2019
- Messages
- 490
- Reaction score
- 2,446
- Points
- 185
- Location
- Holy Cross Mountains, Poland
Now I will have more time to sort the seeds and take photos. Here are some beans I have grown this year.
Bumblebee
Brown Lazy Wife
Hyote - Tonawanda Seneca half-runner bean.
Perepilochka / Quail from Ukraine. It was supposed to be bush, but there were also half-runner beans. Seeds are mixed up. I will sow them again and separate after harvesting.
Ocean View - beans grew in too humid place, therefore the crop is not high.
The seeds from one bush were clearly larger than the others, more elongated and flat.
To be continued...
Bumblebee
Brown Lazy Wife
Hyote - Tonawanda Seneca half-runner bean.
Perepilochka / Quail from Ukraine. It was supposed to be bush, but there were also half-runner beans. Seeds are mixed up. I will sow them again and separate after harvesting.
Ocean View - beans grew in too humid place, therefore the crop is not high.
The seeds from one bush were clearly larger than the others, more elongated and flat.
To be continued...
Last edited:
Ridgerunner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 8,229
- Reaction score
- 10,062
- Points
- 397
- Location
- Southeast Louisiana Zone 9A
To me that looks like two different beans, a segregation. Both look attractive, I really love that bright blue color.
Pulsegleaner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
- Messages
- 3,549
- Reaction score
- 6,977
- Points
- 306
- Location
- Lower Hudson Valley, New York
Question, in your opinion, how different do two bean types have to be before you consider them separate varieties?
By now, most of you are familiar with the bean I shared out (via another member) called Fort Portal Violet (re-named from Joe Simcox's Fort Portal Mixed [since they never came up mixed for me] and no real relation of Fort Poral Jade [Though I think Bantu is]). Purple seeded magenta flowered green podded dry bean with very heavy cot mottling.
Where this is important is that I have another similar bean from that mix called Fort Portal Violet Supreme. In nearly ALL respects it is IDENTICAL to FPV. Same color and shape seed, same cot mottling, same flower color, same pod color same everything.
The ONLY difference between the two is how many seeds are produced per pod and (therefore) how big the pods get. FPV makes three seeds per pod (for a full one) FPVS makes four.
So is that enough of a difference to justify calling FPVS a separate variety? I honestly don't know.
It also occurs to me that, as both are dry beans and too tough of pod to be snaps, how many seeds there are per pod may not be of significance to anyone growing it to eat, especially if it doesn't equal any additional production (I forgot to count how many pods per plant were produced by each one, so the number of actual beans per plant could be basically the same.
Opinions?
By now, most of you are familiar with the bean I shared out (via another member) called Fort Portal Violet (re-named from Joe Simcox's Fort Portal Mixed [since they never came up mixed for me] and no real relation of Fort Poral Jade [Though I think Bantu is]). Purple seeded magenta flowered green podded dry bean with very heavy cot mottling.
Where this is important is that I have another similar bean from that mix called Fort Portal Violet Supreme. In nearly ALL respects it is IDENTICAL to FPV. Same color and shape seed, same cot mottling, same flower color, same pod color same everything.
The ONLY difference between the two is how many seeds are produced per pod and (therefore) how big the pods get. FPV makes three seeds per pod (for a full one) FPVS makes four.
So is that enough of a difference to justify calling FPVS a separate variety? I honestly don't know.
It also occurs to me that, as both are dry beans and too tough of pod to be snaps, how many seeds there are per pod may not be of significance to anyone growing it to eat, especially if it doesn't equal any additional production (I forgot to count how many pods per plant were produced by each one, so the number of actual beans per plant could be basically the same.
Opinions?
Ridgerunner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 8,229
- Reaction score
- 10,062
- Points
- 397
- Location
- Southeast Louisiana Zone 9A
I struggle with that kind of stuff too. Technically if two beans consistently produce just one identifiable difference you can call them different varieties. If there is a distinct difference there is a difference, whatever it may be.
I'll ignore the possibility that somewhere in history the same bean picked up two different names. As many beans as there are out there I'm sure there are some that appear identical in every aspect but have different genealogies. These are not what you are talking about. You are talking about segregations of a bean. at least I think that's it.
I'm not trying to grow varieties. I'm trying to get different segregations to stabilize so I can call them a variety. Not having a lot of luck either but that's another story. I have had a few. Before I send them to Russ as stabilized I try to make sure they are.
Sometimes in the earlier stages especially I may get such a small variation that I'm not sure if it is a true variation or just a difference in how that plant grew. Maybe everything looks the same but one plant is more productive than another. Or maybe there is a slight difference in size of the bean. Or maybe everything looks the same until they've aged a bit and a color difference becomes clear. I just do the best I can.
When something like this happens and I can I try to save all the seeds I'm going to be planting from the same plant, hopefully the superior one. If there is a true difference I eliminate it that way. The way these beans segregate I'm sure I'm losing some potential segregations and maybe future varieties by doing that but this stuff is confusing enough as it is.
As to your specific question if that difference is consistent through three generations I think you can legitimately call it two different varieties.
I'll ignore the possibility that somewhere in history the same bean picked up two different names. As many beans as there are out there I'm sure there are some that appear identical in every aspect but have different genealogies. These are not what you are talking about. You are talking about segregations of a bean. at least I think that's it.
I'm not trying to grow varieties. I'm trying to get different segregations to stabilize so I can call them a variety. Not having a lot of luck either but that's another story. I have had a few. Before I send them to Russ as stabilized I try to make sure they are.
Sometimes in the earlier stages especially I may get such a small variation that I'm not sure if it is a true variation or just a difference in how that plant grew. Maybe everything looks the same but one plant is more productive than another. Or maybe there is a slight difference in size of the bean. Or maybe everything looks the same until they've aged a bit and a color difference becomes clear. I just do the best I can.
When something like this happens and I can I try to save all the seeds I'm going to be planting from the same plant, hopefully the superior one. If there is a true difference I eliminate it that way. The way these beans segregate I'm sure I'm losing some potential segregations and maybe future varieties by doing that but this stuff is confusing enough as it is.
As to your specific question if that difference is consistent through three generations I think you can legitimately call it two different varieties.
Pulsegleaner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
- Messages
- 3,549
- Reaction score
- 6,977
- Points
- 306
- Location
- Lower Hudson Valley, New York
I suppose another good point would be to poll around to others growing FPV (just FPV, I kept all the FPVS) and see how many seeds THEY are getting per pod. If the are getting fours then there really is no difference.
The whole thing is sort if funny in that, as I said, FPV started as being called a mix, and when I got to me it really DID look like a mix of colors, there was tan, and greeny grey and a shade of plum-maroon. In fact there was only ONE seed that was the bright purple that FPV is now. But all of them came back purple, so I can only assume that either the other colors come out after ageing under certain circumstances or something else (I thought the same thing when Bantu came back solid pinky purple for me, but I have since seed other peoples Bantu beans, and it look like it DOES really come in many colors and I just have a restricted genepool.)
On the flip side is Mottled Grey (another African Joe Simcox bean) That was offered as one variable bean but is in fact a mixture of many beans, each of which comes true to itself and no other. the solid purple black one come back solid purple black (since these have the same extreme cot mottling they are very likely FPV again, since Mottled grey is also from the Fort Portal expedition) the speckled ones come back speckled (they look like Pebblestone) and each shape is true to itself (long, round, pinto shaped). Night Sky (my Night Sky I have since learned there is another bean called that). keeps it's odd pattern (black with light white speckling). And the off type seeds (greeny tan and red) give back their own. They are a handful of different bean that were sold from a single basket most likely and so assumed to be one.
The whole thing is sort if funny in that, as I said, FPV started as being called a mix, and when I got to me it really DID look like a mix of colors, there was tan, and greeny grey and a shade of plum-maroon. In fact there was only ONE seed that was the bright purple that FPV is now. But all of them came back purple, so I can only assume that either the other colors come out after ageing under certain circumstances or something else (I thought the same thing when Bantu came back solid pinky purple for me, but I have since seed other peoples Bantu beans, and it look like it DOES really come in many colors and I just have a restricted genepool.)
On the flip side is Mottled Grey (another African Joe Simcox bean) That was offered as one variable bean but is in fact a mixture of many beans, each of which comes true to itself and no other. the solid purple black one come back solid purple black (since these have the same extreme cot mottling they are very likely FPV again, since Mottled grey is also from the Fort Portal expedition) the speckled ones come back speckled (they look like Pebblestone) and each shape is true to itself (long, round, pinto shaped). Night Sky (my Night Sky I have since learned there is another bean called that). keeps it's odd pattern (black with light white speckling). And the off type seeds (greeny tan and red) give back their own. They are a handful of different bean that were sold from a single basket most likely and so assumed to be one.
