A Bean Question

[so lucky]

Maybe @marshallsmyth or @Bluejay77 can help. Or anyone?
I saved seed from Fortex pole beans last year, and planted them this year. I am sure I did not save any kind of bean other than Fortex, as they are quite distinct.
So the beans that are growing this year from the Fortex---most of them seem to be true to form, but a little shorter, so far. Fortex is a hybrid, but I was told that that shouldn't be a problem saving seed. Maybe it is?
But at least one of the vines is producing beans that are not like the Fortex at all. Not slender and long and straight. Fat, bumpy and curved, with white seed, not dark. And has strings.
From what I have learned here about beans, there are occasional sports, but only a bean pod or two? Not the whole vine?
Also, do I understand that beans are not usually pollinated by bees due to the structure of the flower making it difficult for bees to get to? These beans are visited by bumble bees a lot. Not honey bees, but bumble bees.
Does anybody have any idea what is going on? Should I buy new bean seed every year?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not a bean expert but hybrids are hybrids. You have mixed genetics and you don't know what will come back. If you want to grow hybrids you need to get new seeds every year. That's my opinion, I'll watch and see what the experts say.

However, if you like some of what you grow, save those seeds and keep replanting the ones you like. You can develop your own bean variety that way. It will probably take a few generations to stabilize.

Beans are a perfect flower, they have all the male and female parts so they can self-pollinate. The parts are enclosed well enough so pollinators usually don't cross-pollinate them. They are a lot like tomatoes, they can cross but usually they don't. It's usually pretty safe to save the seeds even with other varieties planted nearby.

To self-pollinate the blossom needs to be shaken. Wind can do that, especially the wind I often get here. When they start blooming I often shake the trellis the pole beans are on or just rustle the bush plants when I'm walking by to help pollinate. Bumblebees are good pollinators because they shake the blossom so much. It's not that they are transferring pollen on their legs or other body parts, they just shake the bloom.

 

[digitS']

Isn't that strange!?

• Fedco list them as open-pollinated.
• Jung's has Fortex as hybrid.

I wonder about my own (unfavorable) experience with them ...

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Wow, I didn't realize they were listed as OP anywhere. The main reason I saved seed was because they have that well enclosed flower. I sure have had enough wind around here this year for pollination.
So now I am wondering: I accidentally grew (volunteers) some Headricks Greasy Cut Shorts last year, growing along side of the Fortex, and since I didn't want them to eat or for saving, I disposed of all of them as they grew and developed the characteristics of that particular bean. (short, bumpy, white seed, curved pod with lots of strings). Is it possible that those characteristics could have been missing from some Fortex beans I saved, but showed up this year from beans cross- pollinated by the Headricks last year? Skipping a generation?

 

[digitS']

I accidentally grew (volunteers) some Headricks Greasy Cut Shorts last year, growing along side of the Fortex

showed up this year from beans cross- pollinated by the Headricks last year? Skipping a generation

The seed would be the offspring of such a cross, So Lucky. The pods are part of the mother plant.

Fortex has dark seed and Headrickshas white seed, eh? Well, if dark seed is dominant, you may have had those white seed genes hidden in that saved seed.

A "perfect" flower doesn't quite have clones for offspring. They would vary by what genes the plant carry.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Hmmm. Well, I think I was absent that day in science when genetics was studied. So I am entirely out of my element. All I wanted was some nice long stringless beans.

 

[digitS']

Fruit ..

. and, bean pods must be described as a fruit ..

. are plant ovaries.

Perfection is a metaphor for sumthin else agin .

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

Beans are really hard to cross pollinate saving a huge pollinator population of bugs.

 

[journey11]

That one odd vine must be the offspring of a pod on last year's Fortex that was crossed. All the seeds in that pod would go on to produce an outcross the next year, but since you can't see any difference in them at the time you saved them, they would be mixed in with the rest of your seed. You should do well to save seed from any of the other plants that have come back true to type. Pay close attention to which plants are most true to type and only save seed from those for next year. Unless you see something you like in the oddball one, then you could play with growing out its offspring for a few years and see what you get.

Mason bees are much stronger and much harder working than honey bees. They can force their way into any bean blossom. I like to plant lots of sunflowers in the garden to detour them away from my beans since they prefer the heavy pollen that is easily available from the sunflowers and will pretty much leave the beans alone.

I don't believe you could have a "hybrid" bean be available for sale. It would basically be an outcross and nobody is doing that on purpose and you really can't predict what you'd get from an outcross anyway or when it is going to stabilize. It would otherwise have to be an outcross that someone had already stabilized in recent years, saw value in its traits, named and patented it. But technically it would then just be an OP, not by true definition a hybrid. They just said that because they don't want anyone to save seed from it.

 

[digitS']

Mason bees are much stronger and much harder working than honey bees. They can force their way into any bean blossom.

Interesting observation. I've wondered why "you bean growers" are always talking about outcrosses when beans are supposed to be so difficult to hybridize.

They just said that because they don't want anyone to save seed from it.

I've really wondered about this. It doesn't show much business ethics ... and that term should not be an oxymoronic.

idgitS'