A Wanigan Associate HAS JOINED us here!

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not the expert Marshall is, let alone someone he defers to. I'll still comment and give people that know better a chance to correct my mistakes. That way maybe I can unlearn some things I need to unlearn.

Marshall, I think you would need to cross pollinate by hand. I would not rely on bees to do it. Maybe even cut off the stamen you dont want to pollinate them. Im sure the experts have a technique that works.

Sometimes I'll see one small area in the beans that starts to bear a few days before anywhere else. It looks like a bee got in there and pollinated them at that spot and nowhere else. I actually think that is what happened but she did not pollinate them by carrying pollen from one plant to another. I think she got in there and vibrated them, shaking the pollen loose so it can do its thing.

Beans are wind pollinated. When they first start to flower I'll often just go along the row shaking them, to try to pollinate them. I only do that to start the greed beans. I shake them up so much when I'm harvesting them that I pollinate them then.

I've also heard it is best to shake them in the middle of the day, that then is the time they are best pollinated.

 

[hoodat]

Most of the legumes, including beans and peas, are self pollinating in nature. That's what makes them so true to form. Nature however, doesn't seem to like everything to stay the same so she has made bean DNA in such a way that they mutate more often than many other plants, producing a new variety from an established one. It is those "something different" beans you want to keep an eye out for if you want a new variety. They can also be hand pollinated to get a new variety but it isn't as easy as (say) zuchini. The sugar snap peas are a good example of that. They were hand pollinated crossing Chinese snow peas and green peas.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Thanks for the epazote offer of seeds. Will take a pass on your offer. I'm just a little leary of planting something that might become my newest weed. I think I'll investigate some Beano next.

 

[Blue-Jay]

A little bit about Wanigan Associates and how it worked !



John Withee having been born to a grocery store owner in 1910 in Portland Maine, beans were a major portion of the Withee household. A family that had to stretched their food dollars, and beans were a part of their diet nearly six days a week. In John's adult years he began collecting and looking for the beans the he had known well in his childhood. For over 12 years he traveled much of the country looking for old bean varieties today known as heirloom beans.

In the mid 1970's John Withee started the Non Profit organization called Wanigan Associates. He traded beans like collectors trade stamps or baseball cards. Eventually I became one of the Associates in 1978. Wanigan is an Indian name for boat-mounted kitchens carried on river rafts that were floated down Maine's rivers during the spring lumber drives. Huge quantities of beans were served to the Maine woodsmen from the floating cook shacks.

The way Wanigan Associates actually worked was you could send off for his catalog of beans. Then for a donation of $ 5.00 which covered packing and shipping you could chose two varieties out of his catalog and receive another two varieties that needed to be re-newed. You could select additional varieties from his catalog for and additional 75 cents each. He would then mail you all your selections which you would grow. Seed samples he sent out I think were generally around 35 seeds. In the fall after you had harvested and dried all your seed harvest. You would send back new seed from each variety you selected from his bean catalog and possibly a bit more seed than he sent you so John could get little increase on his varieties. If I recall correctly for an additional $ 4.00 he also mailed you a copy of his quartery beany newsletter. Unfortunately of which I never saved any copies of.

John Withee's Wanigan Associates is credited with enmassing a collection of 1185 to 1200 bean varieties in John's entire bean collecting career. John Withee passed away in 1993 at the age of 83 and with him Wangian Associates passed away too.

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

Anyone else have "beans beans the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot" stuck in your head now?

 

[897tgigvib]

Daisy, did you see the website...

http://www.abeancollectorswindow.com/index.html

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

Have it marked for reading after I catch up w/ TEG posts.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Everyone !

Just came across a new bean website. I think this one is based in Germany. Thought anyone interested in beans would enjoy taking a look, and you can dream about all the beans you would like to have growing in your garden. I know I'm already lost in bean La La Land.

http://www.bohnen-atlas.de/sorten/e/176-engelsbohne

 

[so lucky]

Now if only I could read German..........At least the pictures are pretty!

 

[897tgigvib]

The chrome browser can translate. Not quite perfectly, but understandable.