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

[Artorius]

Opened a few pods of 'Gold und Silber' today! I forget what the seeds I planted looked like, but fresh they seem like something I've never seen before. Even though the colors seem like the bean seeds are not done drying, the pods were crispy dry. I'm guessing that this is one of those seeds whose coloring appears as it ages. The photo on Belle Epoque Meisse shows beans that are a slightly darker pink than these. I wonder where the gold and the silver come from?

@heirloomgal, what you are showing is not a Gold und Silber but most likely some outcross.

This bean is actually called Or i Plata and comes from Catalonia, Spain. Gold und Silber is the literal translation from Catalan to German and is the name under which this bean is sold in the Deaflora store.

Or i Plata looks like this. Photo from the internet.



And here is a link to Gold und Silber in Bohnen-Atlas. In the origin column it says Deaflora Only the main photo shows the correct bean.

Bohnen-Atlas - Detailansicht

Der Bohnen-Atlas ist Nachschlagewerk für Bohnensorten. Er beinhaltet Beschreibungen, die durch Bilder und Kommentare der Nutzer erweitert werden können.

www.bohnen-atlas.de

I have original Or i Plata seeds from the Malgrat del Mar area and I can send you some if you want. This is a late bean in our locations and the pods don't always have time to ripen. I tried last year. I didn't take a photo of the seeds because there was nothing to brag about.

 

[flowerbug]

... I'm guessing that this is one of those seeds whose coloring appears as it ages.

i would say that's a good guess.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Does anyone know where the Mona Lisa bean originated?

Where did you acquire the bean Mona Lisa?

 

[Blue-Jay]

@heirloomgal,

I'm most likely the person who has spread Mona Lisa around since I acquired it in 2013. In the bean groups I belong too I had never seen anyone talk about or post photos of Mona Lisa around 2013. There is a woman in Liebenfels, Austria by name of Harriet Mella who ran across my website and we got to be good email pen pals. I don't think she is really active in having a lot of contacts with other growers, but she has a few friends she knows. She asked me one time had I ever grown a bean called Mona Lisa. She had sent me a photo. I told her it was very beautiful and I had never seen a bean colored like this one before. So she sent me some. I put the bean up on my website after I grew it out and people have ordered Mona Lisa from me steadily ever since.

Harriet has a friend who I believe has about 300 or so varieties of beans in his collection in Austria. Her friend's name is "Erich Gerencser" and he discovered the bean as an outcross in one of the Kipfler varieties he was growing. By the time I got Mona Lisa from Harriet the bean seemed stable. I have not as yet ever gotten and off type from it.

I have been growing Mona Lisa around and done mixed grow outs with rounded white beans that seem to have better productivity than Mona Lisa in hopes of geting a larger rounded seeded bean with higher productivity and the same exact seed coat. So far no off types have cropped up from my efforts.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal, what you are showing is not a Gold und Silber but most likely some outcross.

This bean is actually called Or i Plata and comes from Catalonia, Spain. Gold und Silber is the literal translation from Catalan to German and is the name under which this bean is sold in the Deaflora store.

Or i Plata looks like this. Photo from the internet.

View attachment 69512

And here is a link to Gold und Silber in Bohnen-Atlas. In the origin column it says Deaflora Only the main photo shows the correct bean.

Bohnen-Atlas - Detailansicht

Der Bohnen-Atlas ist Nachschlagewerk für Bohnensorten. Er beinhaltet Beschreibungen, die durch Bilder und Kommentare der Nutzer erweitert werden können.

www.bohnen-atlas.de

I have original Or i Plata seeds from the Malgrat del Mar area and I can send you some if you want. This is a late bean in our locations and the pods don't always have time to ripen. I tried last year. I didn't take a photo of the seeds because there was nothing to brag about.

Well this is interesting @Artorius! I had no idea! So, do you think that the bean I have is a stabilized outcross of i Plata? That someone got a cross somewhere along the line, but it was stable and the bean just got circulated around from there? I looked on Mr. Dirix's site, where I got this bean from, and his seeds look quite like the ones I'm harvesting, maybe his are a little older as the pink is darker...

 

[heirloomgal]

Where did you acquire the bean Mona Lisa?

I received it from Guy Dirix this winter, it was a dream bean to grow for me since I've been wanting to grow it since I first saw it!

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal,

I'm most likely the person who has spread Mona Lisa around since I acquired it in 2013. In the bean groups I belong too I had never seen anyone talk about or post photos of Mona Lisa around 2013. There is a woman in Liebenfels, Austria by name of Harriet Mella who ran across my website and we got to be good email pen pals. I don't think she is really active in having a lot of contacts with other growers, but she has a few friends she knows. She asked me one time had I ever grown a bean called Mona Lisa. She had sent me a photo. I told her it was very beautiful and I had never seen a bean colored like this one before. So she sent me some. I put the bean up on my website after I grew it out and people have ordered Mona Lisa from me steadily ever since.

Harriet has a friend who I believe has about 300 or so varieties of beans in his collection in Austria. Her friend's name is "Erich Gerencser" and he discovered the bean as an outcross in one of the Kipfler varieties he was growing. By the time I got Mona Lisa from Harriet the bean seemed stable. I have not as yet ever gotten and off type from it.

I have been growing Mona Lisa around and done mixed grow outs with rounded white beans that seem to have better productivity than Mona Lisa in hopes of geting a larger rounded seeded bean with higher productivity and the same exact seed coat. So far no off types have cropped up from my efforts.

I didn't get a single cross in all the plants I grew either, I think it may have been 8 plants or possibly 10. I'll post the weight I got, but I can sort of see already that it isn't a 'huge' yielding bean. I got probably close to a pound, maybe 3/4 of lb, but for that many plants it isn't much. I'd love a version of it that has a higher yield.