2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

@Bluejay77
I was reading about some of the Italian beans you have on your website, the Sarconi beans in particular. What a special group of beans you have there. I didn't realize that 'Sarconi' was a reference to an area of Italy. I assumed it was just a company name.

From what I read, fairly quickly, is that the Sarconi beans are 'landraces' from that region historically. Have you found them stable? Apparently these beans are quite at risk. My network list will include some of these Italian beans for sure. Interestingly, I recently saw a listing for a bean called 'Zolfino' in a seed catalogue. Last year, I bought (but didn't grow out yet) a variety called 'Pisterzo'. I was quite shocked to read in one article that Italy has not catalogued or mapped all their traditional bean varieties.

 

[meadow]

Thank you all for clarifying how the seed coat colors work! Much appreciated.

 

[Artorius]

@heirloomgal if you are interested in Italian beans check out this link

L'Italia dei Legumi

Home >L'Italia dei Legumi

www.legumichepassione.com

This is, in my opinion, the best site for traditional Italian varieties. You will find here not only beans, but also other legumes. Just click on the selected map.

And this is a link to Domenico Belisario's website. This is one of the most famous growers from the Sarconi area. Here you will find descriptions of many of the beans he grows.

Prodotti - BELISARIO

PODOTTI

www.fagiolibelisario.it

I don't know, maybe you've seen these websites before.

 

[meadow]

Some observations on 3 similar looking beans: @jbosmith

Johnson: large, plump ovoid

Gross Brother's Vermont Cranberry: less than half the size of Johnson, also a bit plump but less than Johnson

King of the Early: about half the size of Johnson; larger and more elongated than Gross Bros. Has a thin/flat profile more like a pinto

 

[Branching Out]

If I may, I would like to go back to bean genetics and out crosses for a moment please. This past summer I grew a few bush snap beans of 'Tanya's Pink Pod'. One of the plants was an overachiever, and started reaching for the sky-- so I gave it a pole and it climbed a good 10'. The pods on the tall plant were pink and very much resembled those of the bush plants, but when I threshed the pods at the end of the season the beans from the tall plant were different from those of the low form in both shape and colour. Tanya's Pink Pod has light tan coloured kidney-shaped beans, and the pole bean version that I grew had pinkish beans that were more rounded (I am going by memory on the exact shape, as all of my dry beans are in the freezer at the moment due to what I will refer to as 'the weevil incident'). If I have @Ridgerunner correct, Bean A would have crossed with Bean B, and that outcross would have gone unnoticed by the grower as from the outside the seed coat would have looked typical in all ways when it was harvested. The grower then sold the seed to me, I planted it, and I end up with one AB pole bean plant in a patch of AA bush beans. And is this where the fun starts, with a bit of a coin toss in terms of what the next generation might hold for these AB pole bean seeds? And when you say 'revert' does that suggest that when I plant the seeds from the AB pole-version the new recruits could revert right back to having their original AA bush habit, and there the story would end?

 

[flowerbug]

what was the source of the seeds you planted? were they from seeds you had grown yourself?

 

[meadow]

as all of my dry beans are in the freezer at the moment due to what I will refer to as 'the weevil incident'

My sympathies. We had pea weevils for the first time this year, so I can relate.

 

[Branching Out]

what was the source of the seeds you planted? were they from seeds you had grown yourself?

No, I purchased them from Salt Spring Seeds. Out of curiosity I emailed Dan about it, and he said he had never had something like this happen before with the Tanya's Pink Pod.

 

[flowerbug]

interesting link to think about, it may be out of date, but gives some idea of how complicated seed coats, patterns and colors can be.

Bean Genes

The mysterious black beans continued to play on my mind last week. Two things still needed more clarification. First was the question of origin of my purported Gramma Walters variety, and the sec…

squashpractice.com

there is an interesting example and discussion and also some references for further reading.

 

[flowerbug]

No, I purchased them from Salt Spring Seeds. Out of curiosity I emailed Dan about it, and he said he had never had something like this happen before with the Tanya's Pink Pod.

crosses do happen. it's ok.

ok, so we know that you planted seeds from another source so the possible parents can be anything apart from the known one parent that should have been a snap bean.

this means that your lone Pole plant likely had mixed genetics of the dominant Pole growth habit and the recessive bush habit. so if you were to plant the seeds from the pole bean plant you should get mostly pole bean plants back again (with possibilities for semi-runner or bush beans if that pole bean had any crosses happen while it was flowering).

so if you do not want any further pole beans at all from that line, don't plant those seeds that came from that pole bean plant.