897tgigvib
Garden Master
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- Mar 21, 2012
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Powder Star flower
Powder Star Beans
Nova Star flowers
Part of my garden. Front extension is to the left. The beans growing up and out already are the Nova Stars. Nearer on left are the patches of Anasazi and Montezuma Red both allowed to ramble this year. Not very visible here, but in the same bed as the Nova Stars, just this side of them, are the main "extras" of Russ' beans. I patched 5 each of his varieties as my main fail safe. Elsewhere, in the berry bed, is a secondary fail safe of 3 of each of his varieties. The main patches of his varieties is slightly visible, part of it, in the front extension area to the left. About half of each of his packets was planted there. As another kind of fail safe, I still have some original seed in the packets. Failure was not optional.
The Nova Stars that I planted, about 25 of them, then behaved like I was planting seed saved from an F1 hybrid. In other words, it appears the Nova Star plant last year that appeared in among my Mayflower beans, (which were from a Mayflower plant that made Mayflower bean seeds twice as large as normal from which I was simply hoping to obtain a strain of large seeded Mayflower), was actually a hybrid that my wild bumblebees crossed for me. (There is another possible theory. Some few bean varieties remain as TRUE MIXES. Bill Best, the Appalachian bean expert, has at least one such variety on his webpage. I do not know how I could have possibly gotten those, so these Nova Stars may yet be a cross in the F2's now, and may stabilize, or they may not stabilize. Regular Phaseolus vulgaris does have I think, 5 subspecies in it, and each has its peculiarities about crosses between the subspecies.)
This photo is of Nova Star's "Bolitas Star". That is what I am calling this segregation for now. A working name. All 6 of these segregations have to be grown next year, separately, to see if they breed true at all.
This segregation is of the pure white seeds. I'm calling them "Snow Star" for now.
I'll put more on the next post
Powder Star Beans
Nova Star flowers
Part of my garden. Front extension is to the left. The beans growing up and out already are the Nova Stars. Nearer on left are the patches of Anasazi and Montezuma Red both allowed to ramble this year. Not very visible here, but in the same bed as the Nova Stars, just this side of them, are the main "extras" of Russ' beans. I patched 5 each of his varieties as my main fail safe. Elsewhere, in the berry bed, is a secondary fail safe of 3 of each of his varieties. The main patches of his varieties is slightly visible, part of it, in the front extension area to the left. About half of each of his packets was planted there. As another kind of fail safe, I still have some original seed in the packets. Failure was not optional.
The Nova Stars that I planted, about 25 of them, then behaved like I was planting seed saved from an F1 hybrid. In other words, it appears the Nova Star plant last year that appeared in among my Mayflower beans, (which were from a Mayflower plant that made Mayflower bean seeds twice as large as normal from which I was simply hoping to obtain a strain of large seeded Mayflower), was actually a hybrid that my wild bumblebees crossed for me. (There is another possible theory. Some few bean varieties remain as TRUE MIXES. Bill Best, the Appalachian bean expert, has at least one such variety on his webpage. I do not know how I could have possibly gotten those, so these Nova Stars may yet be a cross in the F2's now, and may stabilize, or they may not stabilize. Regular Phaseolus vulgaris does have I think, 5 subspecies in it, and each has its peculiarities about crosses between the subspecies.)
This photo is of Nova Star's "Bolitas Star". That is what I am calling this segregation for now. A working name. All 6 of these segregations have to be grown next year, separately, to see if they breed true at all.
This segregation is of the pure white seeds. I'm calling them "Snow Star" for now.
I'll put more on the next post
