The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[buckabucka]

I am fairly inexperienced at growing dry beans and I'm interested in this "segregating" you are referring to. Is it a genetic mutation? If I understand correctly, I could plant the beans with the mutation, but I won't necessarily get the same color?

I have planted true red cranberry beans for a few years, and this year I got a couple pods with a variegated pattern (pictured below). If I plant those variegated beans, will I get more variegated beans, a reversion back to cranberry color, or is it impossible to tell?
Thanks for any information!

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh @buckabucka

It looks like you have what is called an OUTCROSS.

Let me try to explain what outcross and segregation mean:

Can you recall in any science class you had where they talked about GREGOR MENDEL and his Pea experiments that he did way back in the 1850's?

An outcross happens with Beans because of CROSSPOLLINATION done by bees, mostly bumblebees. (Bean flowers are extremely difficult for a human to crosspollinate. Just about takes a team of neurosurgeons to do it.) But some of the kinds of bees can when they get vigorous digging around in the bean flowers.

Let's say you are growing 2 kinds of beans near each other. A bee digs around in the flowers of one variety of your beans, picks up POLLEN from them, and then goes to your other bean patch with a different variety of beans, starts digging around in those flowers. That bee has the pollen all over it from the other kind of bean, and gets that pollen all over the STIGMA of your other beans.
(Stigma is the part of the bean that gets the pollen for fertilizing the seeds in the immature bean pod inside the flower.)

When this happens, the developing bean seeds grow with genes and DNA that are HALF the pollen parent, and HALF the seed parent.

Those seeds are HYBRIDS. Actually, F1 hybrid.

You'll find F1 hybrid tomatoes and corn in seed catalogs, and lots of other kinds, but you WILL NOT find F1 hybrid beans. Simply because it is so hard for humans to do, or even to control.

So, looks like with beans, when you get a hybrid, QUITE BY ACCIDENT, OR BY LUCK, it seems to be called an OUTCROSS.

So that's what an outcross is.

Now, SEGREGATIONS is a bit more complicated to describe, but there are shorter simpler ways to describe it.

This is where knowing about Mendel's experiments comes in handy. What mendel did was to discover segregation. Well, actually, likely some farmers and ranchers, probably for a couple thousand years, knew that something like segregation happens when this kind of cow is bred to that kind of bull, or this kind of cabbage grew next to that kind of collards, but Mendel did it all scientifically, and took many notes.

Mendel also made little graphs of what happens to specific traits as generations passed.

=====

Short version is,
WHEN YOU PLANT THESE F1 SEEDS, YOU GET F1 PLANTS.
MAINLY DOMINANT GENES SHOW UP.
RECESSIVE GENES ONLY SHOW UP IF BOTH PARENTS HAVE THEM.
IF ONE PARENT HAS A RECESSIVE GENE, AND THE OTHER PARENT HAS A DOMINANT GENE FOR THE SAME TRAIT, THE DOMINANT GENE SHOWS UP IN THE F1 PLANT.

Example for peas is crossing a tall growing pea with a short growing pea.
The tall gene is dominant.
The F1 pea of that cross will all be tall. Every one of them.

BUT!!!

LET THE F1 PLANT
SELF POLLINATE

AND VOYLA!

THE SEEDS YOU GET ARE CALLED F2.

F2 plants all have different combinations of genes.

3 quarters of them will be tall, and 1 quarter of them will be short.

BUTT, THERE'S MORE TO THIS!
(Groans from the back of the 8th grade science class can be heard from the kids that wanted to study making paper airplanes...)

Of the tall growing plants, 2 thirds of them CARRY the gene for short, and 1 third of them are pure tall, not carrying short genes... AND YOU CAN'T EVEN TELL WITHOUT GENETIC TESTING, until you grow the seeds they make.

SHORT VERSION:

Growing the F2 generation gets lots of SEGREGATIONS, the pants with different traits.

You also get SOME new segregations from the next few generations.

=====

Now, with beans, that is EXTRA cool! Because it is almost just about the only way to get new varieties.

Some personal discoveries we're making here is that...

(edited to fix up the next sentence)

F2 bean seeds that grow from F1 plants tend to have well colored or dark pinto patterning, and that is what you have @buckabucka



Another thing...

I'd give you an arm and a leg for just 5 seeds of your true red cranberry, the pure looking kind,

and my other arm and leg for just 5 of your outcross true red cranberry seeds!

 

[baymule]

Marshall, maybe buckabucka will give you those beans and not take your arms or legs--sure would make it hard on you trying to stump around, holding a garden rake in your teeth!

 

[buckabucka]

Wow. Thank you taking the time to write an entire scientific text! I had always thought that the reason people saved their own bean seed for the next crop was because they don't cross like this, although maybe it is not very common. I have two outcrosses, -more about that in a minute.

So if I plant this outcross, would it be almost correct to say the segregations are the various physical traits that appear based on what is dominant and what is recessive? I understand about carrying genes for something that is not expressed. I have lavender Ameraucanas, as well as "splits", which are black but are carrying lavender, but my knowledge of genetics is rather limited. I switched from biology major to art! (long ago).

If I understood correctly, and I plant the F1 outcross, all the plants and seeds will look the same, but then the following year I'll get lots of different traits, or segregations?

I would be happy to send you true red cranberry seed (it came from Fedco), along with some of the outcross. Would you be interested in my other outcross as well? I think the cannellini beans crossed with black coco. Here's a photo of the seeds I grew, along with the surprise seeds.

Top row is black coco on the left, cannellini on the right, and the outcross in the middle. It's kind of brownish-maroon colored. I realize the cannellini could have crossed with any bean, but these were growing right next to each other.

I am guessing the red cranberry (2nd row, left) crossed with Aunt Jean's (2nd row, right). They are both pole varieties that grew next to each other.

The two kinds of beans at the bottom of the photo are the African beans, which I don't think were in flower when the outcross would have occurred. They are not ready yet, but perhaps there will be some out crosses with them as well!

 

[897tgigvib]

Outcrosses in beans are rare, but here's the kicker.

The more kinds of beans you grow, and the nearer they are, and providing enough happy bumblebees, and other assorted bees and bee-types, the more outcrosses will happen.

Also, the seed that is the result of cross pollination, well, you can't even tell it was crosspollinated. Until you plant it and grow it.

=====

Yea Buckabucka, inbox message me, and I'll pack my right arm in some dry ice and mail it to....

kidding!

But I'll trade you some seeds for what you have there. I really only need about 5 seeds of each.

 

[buckabucka]

So wait......, these outcross seeds were cross pollinated last year? And the results are showing up this year?

Then the brown outcross is not a mix of cannellini and black coco, because this is the first year I've grown cannellinis.

I am thoroughly confused. Sending a message....

 

[897tgigvib]

Wallp, what you first do is establish who for sure the mother variety is for each of the outcrosses.

Then, you try to recall what other varieties you grew last year to determine possible fathers.

You might have to wonder if nearby neighbors were growing beans nearby too, and if so, what varieties.

Then, you might just decide, oh what a conglomeration, and not worry too much about who the dad might be. But it does make for a good mystery to solve.

Those mystery brown ones are a similar color to true red cranberry. And, they have a pretty shiny gloss.

One of the reasons, among others, that I love outcrosses...THE MYSTERY

 

[Hal]

@marshallsmyth @buckabucka Bean growing starts off innocently at first and then you find an outcross or two.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Ok @marshallsmyth @buckabucka,

I need to get in on this outcross thing so you know when the outcross actually start showing up in the seed coat. When you get a cross and have a hybrid seed that has new genetic information in it you have as Marshall said the F1 seed. However you won't know it because the seed looks just like the seed of the seed mother plant that received the pollen. Seed coat color expression is a maternally passed on trait and won't express itself until the second season. So the next coming season you plant your F1 seed and then in late summer your F1 hybrid bean plants produces the F2 seed. This seed is still going to look like the original seed of the seed mother. The second season you plant your F2 seed and grow your F2 bean plant and in late summer when the F2 plant produces the F3 seed. Ta Daaaa ! You seed a new seed coat. It could be a new solid color, and change in the seed shape, or even a mix of colors, but it does take until the second season to see new seed coats after the cross has occured. So if you are seeing something new in your seed this year. Then that cross happened back in 2012.

 

[Ridgerunner]

@buckabucka one of the problems is knowing when you have really pure seeds. Dominant genes are pretty easy to tell, if they are there you will see them. But recessives can hide for many generations before they show themselves. Of course only an expert knows which genes are dominant and which are recessive. And you are talking about a huge number of gene pairs. It would be nice if you were talking about only one gene pair, but usually it’s many gene pairs. It’s the same with chickens or beans. There is one gene pair that determines if egg shells are base blue or white so that is easy, but there are at least 13 documented gene pairs that determine what shade of blue, green, white, or brown.

Assuming that the parents are pure genetically and are different varieties, the seeds you plant from that first crossing will all look like the mother plant. You cannot tell by looking who the father is. When you cross chickens of different breeds, the hen will lay the same color egg no matter who the father is. You cannot tell by looking at the egg who the father is.

When you plant that F1 seed or hatch that F1 egg, you will see the effect of the father. With the bean, the plant may grow different than either parent, have different color blooms, or make different color seeds. The chicks will take on traits from both parents. If the parents were genetically pure though, every one of these beans or chickens will be identical. That’s not always the case in real life because there could be some recessive genes still buried under dominant genes, which means the parents really were not genetically pure. You see that a lot with hatchery chickens but you also get that with chickens from breeders. Those recessive genes are a pain to get rid of because you don’t know that they are there.

When you plant the F2 seeds, which are the seeds from the F1 plants, you may get about anything. Each plant has its own set of genetics, some random combination of the original parent’s genetics. Recessives pair up. Dominants drop out. The genetics are a jumble.

This is where you start segregating. If you select bean seeds from plants that grow alike and produce alike, you start cleaning up the genetic mess. I don’t know how it is with beans seeds, but with chickens they generally have to produce the same for four or five generations after a cross before you can consider them purebreds. Even then you occasionally have recessives pair up.
I find that symbols can sometimes help in understanding. Assume capital letters are dominant and smaller case letters are recessive. Say you have two parents that are genetically pure with one parent having gene pairs:

AA, bb, CC
and the other parent having:
aa, BB, cc

The F1 hybrid will all look alike but different from each parent and have genetics:
Aa, Bb, Cc.

When you cross the F1 hybrids you may get offspring with:
AA, BB, CC
AA, Bb, cc
AA, Bb, CC
AA, Bb, Cc
AA, BB, cc
AA, BB, Cc
Aa, Bb, cc
Aa, Bb, CC
Aa, Bb, Cc
Aa, BB, cc
Aa, BB, Cc
Aa, BB, Cc
(I’ll leave out the bb pairings because this is getting too long anyway but you see how messy it gets. bb pairings would give another six possible combinations.)

This is where you start doing the segregating. Say you select these to cross (they should look identical):
AA, Bb, cc
Aa, BB, cc

you get:
AA, BB, cc
AA, Bb, cc
Aa, BB, cc
Aa, Bb, cc

You will notice the capital C gene is lost forever from this genetic pool and it is a lot fewer possible combinations.

Then you start crossing these. The recessives a or b will occasionally pair up so you don’t use these in future generations. Eventually you wind up with the genetics of mostly:
AA, BB, cc

This is when it has stabilized, though it is still possible some recessives are still hiding under the dominants and may still pair up. People often think this is a mutation but it is usually not, it’s just recessives pairing up and giving you a surprise, like getting a white chicken out of a black flock. I only used three gene pairs in this example. There are a whole lot more gene pairs involved and some of their effects are pretty subtle or another gene may mask their effect. The theory is pretty straight forward but putting it into practice can get pretty messy.

I don’t know if this helps or not.

From what Russ just posted, it is a bit more complicated since seed coat color in beans won't show up for an additional generation. Man thus stuff gets complicated.