2024 Little Easy Bean Network - Growing Heirloom Beans Of Today And Tomorrow

[Blue-Jay]

Belgische Suppenbohne - Pole Dry. Left Photo. Interprets into English as Belgian Soup Bean. I acquired this one from my Austrian bean friend in Liebenfels in 2015. This years Network grower turned in beautiful seed. It was grown in De Soto, Wisconsin.

Blaugraue - Pole Dry. Suppossedly a blue colored bean. It seems this bean and other blue beans color is affected tempurature when the seeds are forming. This bean was sent to me by Cordula Metzger from Lebenz, Germany. Cordula runs the networking of beans at Bohnen-Atlas. This years grower was from Pella, Iowa.


Belgische Suppenbohne..........................................Blaugraue

 

[flowerbug]

Blaugraue - Pole Dry. Suppossedly a blue colored bean. It seems this bean and other blue beans color is affected tempurature when the seeds are forming.

i'm not sure which factors drive the color but i have had some nice blues in them and then others that are the gray color without a hint of blue at all.

i've not grown it enough times to figure it out. as a pole bean i don't want a lot of those genes flying around via the bees...

 

[heirloomgal]

Belgische Suppenbohne - Pole Dry. Left Photo. Interprets into English as Belgian Soup Bean. I acquired this one from my Austrian bean friend in Liebenfels in 2015. This years Network grower turned in beautiful seed. It was grown in De Soto, Wisconsin.

Blaugraue - Pole Dry. Suppossedly a blue colored bean. It seems this bean and other blue beans color is affected tempurature when the seeds are forming. This bean was sent to me by Cordula Metzger from Lebenz, Germany. Cordula runs the networking of beans at Bohnen-Atlas. This years grower was from Pella, Iowa.

View attachment 70944View attachment 70945
Belgische Suppenbohne..........................................Blaugraue

The network Blaugraue beans I grew this year were very, very blue. In fact, I looked at the original seeds of the network Blue & White of Bernardo beans and they are 100% beige and the ones I harvested were 100% blue too. It was a very blue year! The Pragerhoff beans however did not hold the blue color as they really dried, they look even more beige than the Blaugraue in the photo above.

 

[jbrobin09]

Poll: how far apart do you plant your vulgaris bean varieties to ensure uncrossed seed? I am reading 10-20ft, but I also took a webinar from the Seeds of Diversity group and the bean breeder kept mentioning how difficult it was to cross beans. So what spacing do you use between varieties, and do you see a lot of crosses?

 

[heirloomgal]

Poll: how far apart do you plant your vulgaris bean varieties to ensure uncrossed seed? I am reading 10-20ft, but I also took a webinar from the Seeds of Diversity group and the bean breeder kept mentioning how difficult it was to cross beans. So what spacing do you use between varieties, and do you see a lot of crosses?

My 2 cents would be that crossing is about bees, not distances. I've gotten crossed seed from people isolating by 150 feet, and no crosses from seeds growing side by side to other varieties. Bees can fly an awful long way. The only real way it seems to gauge what the crossing situation you have in your garden is, is by regrowing your saved seed to see. I'd be surprised if anyone is getting much more then 3% outcrossed even with bees though because bean flowers technically are self pollinated before they even open, they're cleistogamous.

 

[Decoy1]

I agree with @heirloomgal. I grow mine in quite close proximity, often touching. I once had a report of a 3-way cross from my bean seed but that was an isolated case and generally the progeny come true. Very busy bees must have had some fun that year.

A joy of beans seems to me to be that usually a cross is obvious, whereas for other crops, like peppers, for example, the result of a cross might well be more subtle and confusing.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Poll: how far apart do you plant your vulgaris bean varieties to ensure uncrossed seed? I am reading 10-20ft, but I also took a webinar from the Seeds of Diversity group and the bean breeder kept mentioning how difficult it was to cross beans. So what spacing do you use between varieties, and do you see a lot of crosses?

You might want to try spacing your rows at about 8 feet (244 cm) apart and in the middle 4 feet (122 cm) plant a row of flowers like Zinnias. The flower pollen might dilute the bean pollen enough to cut down on crossing a lot. I save my Zinnia seed for planting with beans.

I once was looking at a book in a library about bean seed production. It said that seed companies would space there bean fields at least a mile apart minimum to prevent crossing of two different varieties.

 

[flowerbug]

it took me four years and planting many thousand Purple Dove seeds before i finally got some crosses to show up. as many of those seeds that i can replant as possible then will show any crosses the following years. i'm missing finding many of them because i'm growing about 15-25 lbs of Purple Dove beans each year and i can't possibly plant them all. they're yummy.

i am seeing my efforts pay off though in that i now have several variations showing up when i'm shelling beans out and i hope to continue those in larger numbers to get me closer to my goals.

there's a lot of factors involved as mentioned by others already.

the local native bee populations will be your biggest sources of cross pollination. if you don't have many native bees around or can provide decoy flowers to keep them more interested in those than you can reduce how many crosses you will see...

personally, i often interplant and hope for crosses because i want to try different things and cannot physically manage the crosses myself (or i would be doing that instead for sure!). the bees and other insects are my helpers and i'm glad to see them in the gardens.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Blue Speckled Tepary- Prostrate. Left photo. Adapted to the desert southwest. They will grow on as little as 2 inches of annual rainfall. They will grow in more humid climates and will produce more foliage given more water. I acquired this bean in 2013 from Marshall Smyth of Potter Valley, California who was a big contributor to this thread in 2013, 2014. There were two growers of this bean this year. One from Santa Ana, California who's beans didn't seem to do well. The other grower from Pella, Iowa turned in a bigger batch of the beans.

Brockton Horticultural - Pole Dry. Right Photo. I acquired this bean in 2016 from Debbie Groat from Rhodes, Michigan. She make beautiful bean jewelry. Very productive variety with large kidney shaped seed. Offered by the Aaron Low Seed Company in 1885.


Blue Speckled Tepary.............................................Brockton Horticultural

 

[jbrobin09]

it took me four years and planting many thousand Purple Dove seeds before i finally got some crosses to show up. as many of those seeds that i can replant as possible then will show any crosses the following years. i'm missing finding many of them because i'm growing about 15-25 lbs of Purple Dove beans each year and i can't possibly plant them all. they're yummy.

i am seeing my efforts pay off though in that i now have several variations showing up when i'm shelling beans out and i hope to continue those in larger numbers to get me closer to my goals.

there's a lot of factors involved as mentioned by others already.

the local native bee populations will be your biggest sources of cross pollination. if you don't have many native bees around or can provide decoy flowers to keep them more interested in those than you can reduce how many crosses you will see...

personally, i often interplant and hope for crosses because i want to try different things and cannot physically manage the crosses myself (or i would be doing that instead for sure!). the bees and other insects are my helpers and i'm glad to see them in the gardens.

We have tons of bees, honeybees as well as many types of native bees. The yard just swarms with them in the spring.