A Bean Question

[Ridgerunner]

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.

You might think of this like your chickens. It doesn't matter which rooster she mates with (or even doesn't mate if you don't have a rooster), a hen will always lay the same general color and size of egg. A bean plant will make the same color/size of bean no matter what pollen was used to pollinate it. But when the egg hatches you can see the effects on the chick from the rooster. When the bean seed hatches (grows) you can see the effect of the pollen if it was from a different bean. It's just that with beans you have to wait a year instead of 21 days to see the results.

Steve, @marshallsmyth told us how he cross-pollinates beans a year or two back. It involves a magnifying glass, clipping the male parts out of the flower before it has a chance to pollinate, and gathering pollen from another bean to put in there, probably with a cotton swab. I can't remember for sure what details he used. It is very meticulous work, I would not expect them to do that for commercial over-the-counter bean seeds. It would make the seeds way too expensive with all that labor. There are just not enough beans in a pod to make the labor worthwhile.

@journey11 I think I'm going to disagree with you. I'm not sure if you are talking just beans or hybrids in general. I'm not totally sure we are disagreeing at all. But there are all kinds of hybrid corn, tomatoes, and other hybrid things on the market. You can predict the outcome of a cross from purebred parents with great precision. It's when you plant the seeds from the hybrids you get all the unknowns.

 

[seedcorn]

@Ridgerunner @journey11 Don't think you are disagreeing at all. Plenty of hybrids in vegetable sources (not to be confused with GMO which doesn't exist except sweet corn) . To my knowledge there are no hybrid beans for sale anywhere. Breeders make an F1-in beans-then line select the resulting beans for 7 generations to purify the line as best as they can.

 

[journey11]

Yeah, I think we are saying the same thing basically. Other veggies that are easily cross-pollinated by hand and yield large volumes of seed per fruit crossed are easily reproduced as hybrid seed. They can't do it efficiently with beans, as each flower manipulated would only yield like 5-9 seeds and deliberately crossing a bean flower wouldn't be easy to do. Irrationally time-consuming. What they are selling as a hybrid is what we would call a stabilized outcross--a new variety of bean. It will reproduce true to type, or else they wouldn't have had the bulk seed to sell it in the first place, so technically it's an OP seed.

If I remember right, it was tomatoes that Marshall was telling us about. It has been a long time back though, so it would take some digging.

 

[so lucky]

I moved my bean poles to the other side of the garden this year specifically to avoid inadvertently allowing any of the Headricks to volunteer amongst the Fortex vines like last year. Rats!
Headricks is a quick growing, very vigorous vine, quick producing, while Fortex is just the opposite, in my garden.

Like some cowbird dropped her egg in my nest of bluebird eggs.

 

[journey11]

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

An outcross to me is a happy accident, something that might bear exciting potential. Takes a lot of patience, inquisitiveness, good note taking and extra room in the garden to see what will happen next.

Some bean collectors, like many here, look forward to finding an outcross in their heirloom seed. Most of the bean people here are growing small population samples and several (or many!) bean varieties, so it's bound to happen. Others preserving the genetic heritage of forgotten beans that have gone by the wayside as new commercial varieties became more popular or desirable, like the place where I get most of my Appalachian heirlooms, don't like outcrosses and try to avoid them and select against them. Bill Best from Sustainable Mountain Agriculture has huge fields of beans, long rows of only one type each, with 100s of specimens per row. The book Seed to Seed, by Suzanne Ashworth recommends something like 200 yards isolation distance for beans, with the goal of avoiding outcrosses. But when you realize it is only one or a few pods that will ever get cross pollinated, and you're willing and able to pay close attention to what goes on with each plant, you can plant them all closer together and still preserve a pure variety while playing around with outcrosses if you want.