andyb
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Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Sept 16, 2018 21:59:00 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse You're most welcome. Thanks for growing these seeds out! I'm curious to see how the population adapts to your environment over the next few years.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 28, 2018 22:43:06 GMT -5
That is actually my hope, to have perennial greasy beans one day. There are many issues with even attempting this cross and for sure will take a lot of effort to get there. Luckily there are at least few others with overlapping aims and at least someone might get there . I have only 2 accessions of P. polystachios and its first year to grow them here. They grow almost fine but it looks like they will not flower this year. I don't even know if they are perennial under these conditions. Fingers crossed for next year. Do you have any of those tiny pods/seeds left? Do you plan to harvest more? That sounds like a great breeding goal! I wish you luck. I can't find a link online, but if you can track down the paper "The Ecology of the Wild Kidney Bean Phaseolus Polystachios", citation here (nih.gov), it has some really good information on P. polystachios. I wish I'd read it sooner. Apparently they have different growth modes depending on photoperiod. Too long of days, and they won't flower. Too short of days, and they won't flower. 13.5 hours of light per day is apparently just right, and they'll flower. I pruned my plant heavily and set the lights to 13.5 hours. No flowers yet, but I'm hopeful.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 28, 2018 22:26:17 GMT -5
I've been creeping/reading this forum for a few years now, but signed up to resurrect this long-dead thread. I've started breeding hops (in the very early stages) since I'm a home brewer. I'd love to hear if anyone else has been breeding hops and how that's going? Cheers! Welcome to the forum! Feel free to post over on our welcome thread if you'd like to tell us a little more about yourself. I haven't done any hops breeding but it sounds interesting. The neighbors down the block might be a little annoyed to find seeds in their crop though. What varieties are you starting with and where did you get your male plants or seeds from?
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 28, 2018 22:18:51 GMT -5
Sheesh. Too many similar threads So many awesome threads! I'm really enjoying following along with the projects I'm not actively involved with.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 20, 2018 23:31:11 GMT -5
After years of listening to me talk on and on about my projects, my dad is finally getting the plant breeding bug. The group of species he's interested in is the ground cherries, Physalis sp., and his birthday is coming up soon, so I was wondering if anyone has seeds they'd be willing to trade.
It looks like there are lots of commercial sources for P. ixocarpa and P. pruinosa, and a few for P. peruviana, so those are less interesting unless they're unusual varieties. What I'd love to find are some of the other species like P. heterophylla or P. subglabrata, or something else that hasn't come up in my searches so far.
(In case you're wondering, I do plan to skim a few seeds off the top so I can try some wide crosses of my own.)
Reply here or PM me if you're interested in a trade. I have some common x runner beans, some other interesting beans of various species, TPS, tomatoes, mixed-up oregano, and some awesome cilantro from ars-grin that's probably still viable. I could dig through my collection and find some other stuff, too.
USA only.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 11, 2018 13:32:33 GMT -5
Well that explains the slick, shiny pods forming on one of the vines. They are not normal greasy beans, too wide and flat. Did I send you any wild beans, phaseolus poylatacious? The tiny little pods shatter easily and takes lots to make much but they truly are perennial, my patch is three or four years old and just keeps getting bigger both from roots and self seeding. I haven't actually eaten any but they would certainly make an interesting cross. hint, hint. Well, that's cool. I guess the "greasy" trait is dominant. It'll be fun seeing where those end up in a few years. You did send me some P. polystachios and I have one plant growing under lights in the basement. It hasn't flowered yet, but is getting big enough that it's starting to dominate the grow area. The photoperiod is set at 16 hours of light per day, and I think I'm going to drop it to see if I can trigger flowering. Along with the P. polystachios, I currently have runner beans, tepary beans, and the one mixed-up runner x common plant with runner bean cytoplasm. I'll try crosses back and forth with them all if I get flowers from the P. polystachios. Where did you get the seeds for the P. Polystachios?
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 11, 2018 0:03:38 GMT -5
andyb , did you by chance use some greasy beans in your crosses? Sure did. Both your white greasy bean and one of your brown greasy beans that was crossed-up with something else. I sent you at least one seed of each, hopefully more. My record keeping when I was sending seeds out wasn't very good.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 9, 2018 23:56:45 GMT -5
I'm not emasculating. Just adding pollen to whatever natural pollination might be going on. If I can remember, I'll drag some runner bean pollen in from a different field. Is there any point in attempting a wider cross? I also have flowers from tepary, lima, and cowpea. Yeah. There's really no reason for you to do emasculations if you're just trying to get more seeds and get some bush bean genetics in the population, and fertile x fertile bean crosses are pretty easy. I wouldn't say that there's not a point in attempting a wider cross, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. I attempted about 130 (common x runner) x tepary crosses without success, and that should be by far the easiest of the three you mention. Then again, I haven't attempted those crosses with those particular combinations of varieties and I haven't attempted any crosses with lima beans or cowpeas. Maybe your environmental conditions are the magical combination. Who knows?
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 9, 2018 22:48:41 GMT -5
But I'm not in this group. YET. But it looks like a lot of fun. Next year? I have some more projects lined up, hoping to kick them off this winter depending on how some crosses/growouts go. I also still have quite a few common x runner seeds in my inventory. I'll try to remember to PM you when the time comes, but send me a note if you haven't heard from me when planting season is near.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 9, 2018 22:42:40 GMT -5
The last few days, I have been attempting manual pollinations of the [common X runner] bean crosses. Some bush beans are flowering nearby, so that's what I'm using. There are also pole bean flowers nearby, but I'll use bush bean pollen preferentially. For that backcross, with emasculation, I get one pod for about every 5 crosses. Most pods only have one seed but a few have two.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 9, 2018 0:05:39 GMT -5
I should probably request some seed for it and see if I can introgress those compatibility genes into a runner bean... Interested in joining efforts? I aim at white flowered runner beans to have in the crosses. If you are fine with it, I'm happy to share any successful cross. Do you know any source of ICA pijao seeds? Best, Srdjan I looked around and don't see them anywhere but from the US seed bank, ARS-GRIN. Is there a European equivalent you can request from? I'm also not sure if there's a way you can request from the US seed bank internationally. I'm sure CIAT has some, but there would be a bunch of paperwork and I'm not sure they would distribute seeds to an amateur. I'm not comfortable with sending or receiving seeds internationally through normal mail or by otherwise circumventing import/export restrictions, but I would love to collaborate with you on strategies, techniques and results!
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 8, 2018 23:54:43 GMT -5
Are your plants near enough to any common or runner beans that they might naturally get cross-pollinated? My understanding is that the F1 hybrids have mostly sterile pollen, which is why they produce so few beans. Some pure-blooded pollen might help out and give you better yields. That explains what happened to a red flowered vine I found in my common bean patch awhile back. I only got a few seeds cause the original vine was growing on a corn stalk and it fell over on the fence and deer ate most of the plant. Anyway when I planted the ones I did get they grew into giant vines with what seemed like millions of fed flowers but only made a couple dozen seeds. I still have those somewhere, guess I should try to track them down. This year there are common beans growing just a few feet from my beans you sent me. Also runners about fifty feet away. So far though, I do not have a large amount of pods forming but all of my beans of all kinds are pretty sparse this year. Next year would be a great year to plant those other beans out, along with whatever you get from these plants. I doubt there'd be any way to tell if you get a cross with one of your other beans but if you do, then all the better. My bean crop in the garden this year is miserable, but mostly because I keep picking the flowers off and using them for crosses. Joseph Lofthouse Cool beans!
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 8, 2018 23:36:40 GMT -5
Minnesota growout of andyb 's seeds. Trellis is a mix of all the strains given to me. Some strains are pink flowered some are white flowered. One pink flowered has reddish vines. Note the white flower upper right corner. ... Note white flowers center. ... This is a pod from a white flower. ... Thanks for posting these photos! I like to think that this thread could be a resource for other people who think they might have a naturally occurring common x runner cross, and your pictures and everyone else's pictures are great. It's hard to tell whether the white flowers are from crosses or not. Might be able to tell from a closeup. If you look closely, there's a pair of little green leafy things right at the base of the flower. If I remember right, these are called bracts. On a common bean, these are generally pretty large, wide, and rounded. On a runner bean, they're generally quite small, narrow and pointed. On a cross, they'd presumably be somewhere in between. On the one crossed up plant I have growing right now, it's clearly mid-way between the two. That bean pod sure looks like a common bean. Maybe a Homestead bean. Doesn't seem like it's hurting anything, though.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 8, 2018 0:24:34 GMT -5
Nifty! Do you remember if the white flowered ones corresponded to seedlings with high cotyledons? Yes they did. There is still one of the high-cotyledon plants that hadn't flowered last I checked. Also of note, is that the plants with cotyledons at soil-level had red-veins in the leaves, while the plants with high-cotyledons had veins the same color as the rest of the leaf. I figured when I first noticed the red-veined leaves, that it might be another indication of successful crosses. Ah. Glad to hear you took out plants with high cotyledons and white flowers. Red veined leaves sound pretty cool. The next generation, when things start segregating, should be interesting. Are your plants near enough to any common or runner beans that they might naturally get cross-pollinated? My understanding is that the F1 hybrids have mostly sterile pollen, which is why they produce so few beans. Some pure-blooded pollen might help out and give you better yields.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Aug 1, 2018 21:02:36 GMT -5
Thanks for the grow reports!
Ones with red or pink flowers are confirmed crosses, but some other real crosses could have white flowers, depending on the heritage. One of the main runner beans I'm working with has white flowers and I think some of the common beans parents I used do too.
Going forward, I don't expect each plant to set very many pods.
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