2023 Little Easy Bean Network - Beans Beyond The Colors Of A Rainbow

[Zeedman]

Seedcorn maggots I had this May. You are correct on emergence speed. I plant May15 weekend every year and this year it was a cooler weather for that weekend. They didn't emerge as quickly as normal years. I havent really had issues until about 2 years ago. And that garden has been around for years. Weird stuff.

That experience & conclusions mirrors what happened in my rural garden. Been gardening there since 2005, and never had trouble with germination - until I started turning under large amounts of organic matter, in an effort to restore fertility. The fertility restoration was successful; but because the decaying organic matter apparently attracted the seed corn flies from nearby farm fields, it has proven to be a double-edged sword. (A triple-edged sword actually, since the weeds too really appreciated the increased fertility .)

The organic matter was necessary to refresh the depleted soil, but maybe I only need to do that every 2-3 years, and add wood ashes, charcoal, and soil sulfur in the off years. I plan to put that to the test this year.

Seed vigor (or the lack thereof) was definitely a factor in seedling emergence. Some of my older soybeans had poor germination when tested; so as I have done in previous years, I just over-planted to compensate. That worked in my home gardens... but in the rural garden, it was just more maggot food. The soybeans which had higher germination rates (and presumably more vigor) fared better. So for the rural garden, I need to make greater use of backup transplants for soybeans (I already start all other beans there as transplants).

 

[heirloomgal]

It's 2024 guys!

 

[flowerbug]

It's 2024 guys!

i can't heeeer yoooooo!

besides most of what i'm posting here is still related to last year's plantings.

when i have more 2024 content i'll put it in the newer thread. ...

 

[Zeedman]

besides most of what i'm posting here is still related to last year's plantings.

when i have more 2024 content i'll put it in the newer thread. ...

Ditto

 

[Decoy1]

I had gotten this bean from a fellow in a trade who lived in Valpiano, Italy. The first time I grew it out it gave me enough different seed coats that I had realized it was an outcross. So what growers are getting each time they grow it out with different colored beans is they are seeing the bean, is still unstable bean. It is still creating new gene pairs which are giving you the new seed coats you are seeing each season. When two different growers get different results in the same season it's just that they are getting different gene pairs from what the other growers are getting. It's very possible that this bean might or might not ever settle down and become stable.

I had my seed directly from the same fellow.

What puzzles me a little is that the seed I produced this last year appears exactly the same as the seed I planted. It’s only one generation but I wondered whether it could by any chance be a stable segregation.

 

[beandude]

Some network bean pics and a few others.

Schwarze Witwe
I like the odd name 'Black Widow'. I think that it might even be the reason I wanted to grow this network bean. View attachment 60740


Polish Pea
This may just be the teeniest bean I've ever grown. It's SUPER small, even smaller than a navy bean. I did grow it in a planter so I'm not sure if that had an effect, all the other beans I grew in planters were normal size. Nice and easy to shell, thin blonde pods. A short semi-runner.View attachment 60739

Oh. My. Gosh. This network bean Kitoba. I just can't believe all the great attributes this bean has. I can't quite get the color right in the photos yet, but I'm going to keep trying. Too much grey in the shots which is misleading, this is a very raspberry lavender shade of bean. It's a real stunner. I can't wait to get a weight for these, 4 plants produced a lot of top quality beans. The pods are rock hard, which I like as that quality gives resilience to both the seeds and the pods.View attachment 60741

Hopi Pink
I only just shelled the first few pods but I found 2 of the 3 pink expressions this bean has. I got it from Mandy's Greenhouse. I like the larger light pink ones, the darker ones are a bit ho-hum. I'm going to select only for the fatter pink beans in the future. I'll be curious to see if the 3rd color expression is in the pods.View attachment 60742

Netowrk bean Van Gogh's Olive. This is another one that is really hard to get a good picture of with my device. The bean is really sensitive to the light and background and different color tones in the seedcoats get highlighted with different lighting. So I'm posting a few pics to try and give @Bluejay77 's bean its justice. This is another magnificently coloured bean.

The lavender tones.
View attachment 60743

The bluish green tones.
View attachment 60745

Network bean Paul Bunyan Giant. All the dried pods so far have been 12 inches long, or very close to it. This bean seed reminds me a little of Brejo, it's got curved bean seeds. This is a real strange one! The name fits it well.View attachment 60746

Youdou #1
This is actually a pretty seed, but it has ghastly orange rings around the eye and there is a rusty streak on the back of the seeds. This makes them look a bit dirty or something. But the actual seedcoat is very different, in the flesh the seeds actually have the illusion of small baby blue flecks. They aren't quite this dark in reality, it's the lightning.
View attachment 60748

Network bean Lazy Wife Red. This is a wonderful bean variety. I didn't know what to expect with this one, and it hadn't been grown since 2014. The plants were vigorous & productive, the pods were early, long and well formed. Slight curve. Easy to shell too. And the bean seeds are on the larger side with sort of speckled fleshy pink seedcoats. Excellent quality all around. So happy to have this one in my collection now! I wonder if I can eat it as a snap bean since it's called a lazy wife?
View attachment 60747

Bay of Fundy Amethyst. It's wild how much this bean is like 'Candy' - only in purple. Even the shape tendencies in the seeds of Candy are carried over into this bean, as well as the patterns. The plants of BOFA were really overwhelmed by the huge Black Panther soybeans in the next row, which I didn't know would become so large. So there was significant mold issues, but I must say they still produced pretty well for the challenges it had and the seed quality is good.
View attachment 60749

Wow, they look absoluetly fantastic! Sadly Annapolis seeds doesn't ship to my country so I made this account just to ask for if you would be willing for a bean seed exchange. Hope to hear from you.

 

[Zeedman]

Wow, they look absoluetly fantastic! Sadly Annapolis seeds doesn't ship to my country so I made this account just to ask for if you would be willing for a bean seed exchange. Hope to hear from you.

Welcome to TEG @beandude , and to the sanitarium for the beaned!

 

[heirloomgal]

Wow, they look absoluetly fantastic! Sadly Annapolis seeds doesn't ship to my country so I made this account just to ask for if you would be willing for a bean seed exchange. Hope to hear from you.

I'll pm you @beandude.

 

[Blue-Jay]

What puzzles me a little is that the seed I produced this last year appears exactly the same as the seed I planted. It’s only one generation but I wondered whether it could by any chance be a stable segregation.

Since you got the same seed again that you started out with. It might be a sign that the bean is stable. To prove it, you need to grow it out two more times to make sure there is no other genetics in their lurking to pop out and surprise you. An even better thing to do would be to grow that bean in isolation for another two seasons.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Yes welcome @beandude ! It's always nice to have more people who grow and love beans. It makes this thread even more interesting with more inputs.