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Post by Alan on Feb 1, 2009 20:21:29 GMT -5
Dave (american Gardener) was kind enough to send me several varieties of these beautiful little South American beans to trial, unfortunately it appears that they are daylight sensitive, however they can cross with common garden beans leading to a short season and less photosensitive Nuna bean. We will grow these in pots and move them to the greenhouse where we will cross them with bush beans and pole beans this coming fall. For those who don't know what a nuna bean is, they look like an ordinary bean and come in many colors, however they differentiate in that they are used for "popping" much like popcorn. Having a taste that is said to be comparable to peanuts and a texture like that of popcorn. Commercial breeders have bred and tried to copyright the Nuna bean in the past to be used for commercial production, however the indegiounous folks of their home region prevented such a think from happening to their traditional and public domain crops thankfully. They are on the same list with other Andean/Peruvian crops which have been pirated by commercial breeders in recent years including: Salvia Divinorum (Oxacan) Kculli/Kulli purple corn Maca Oca Yacone Ullocos Ayahusca Here are a couple of articles I found on the net referencing this bio-piracy: variety naturalscience.com/ns/news/news38.html www.new-ag.info/02-5/develop/dev03.html |
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Post by raymondo on Feb 7, 2009 6:27:44 GMT -5
Good one Alan. Create a number of them and spread them around so that the patent becomes worthless.
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Post by Alan on Feb 11, 2009 16:49:13 GMT -5
If I have any success I will do just that my friend! In the meantime I suggest that everyone get their hands on warty cucurbrita species and keep them distributed so we can keep them from being monopolized by Siegers seed. For more info see my blog at homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com |
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Post by lavandulagirl on Feb 11, 2009 19:23:05 GMT -5
I just like to say the name... Nuna Bean Nuna Bean Nuna Bean. Thanks! 
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Post by eastex on Jan 30, 2016 18:10:54 GMT -5
Has anyone been successful with these beans? Any successful crosses with traditional beans to work out the day length issues?
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Post by billw on Jan 30, 2016 18:26:41 GMT -5
There are actually a lot of successful crosses floating around, but none of them got released because some jerks managed to patent day length neutral nuñas. I think the patent has now expired, but I'm not completely sure on that. If not, it is getting close.
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Post by billw on Jan 30, 2016 18:31:29 GMT -5
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Post by eastex on Jan 30, 2016 18:47:06 GMT -5
Thank you! I've always been intrigued by the Nunas, but haven't yet acquired any. It's good to know the patent is expired. I find that sort of business extremely distasteful and a bit frightening in the long term implications, you know?
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Post by zeedman on Feb 1, 2016 18:46:34 GMT -5
Promising news. I really would like to try growing one of the day-neutral nunas, before I get too old to garden. |
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Post by billw on Feb 1, 2016 18:48:43 GMT -5
I have a big sack of old seed sitting around here somewhere. They don't grow well in my climate. Let me see if I can dig them up...
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Post by nicollas on Feb 2, 2016 13:56:38 GMT -5
I've seen a study about day neutral x popping beans but it seemed difficult to recover a fully popping bean in the first generations. Seems to be polygenic and/or infuenced by environement
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 2, 2016 19:17:21 GMT -5
It also occurs to me that crossing with the wrong other bean could more or less wreck the line all the way down, even if you DID manage to retain the popping gentics. Popping produce is one of the few places where the SHAPE of the resulting seeds becomes important. For most things, it's basically little more than cosmetic (we may used crowding traits to tell one cowpea strain from another and we may value the extra production that comes from a crowded pea (assuming there is one) but there should be no real taste or nutritional difference between a crowded pea and an uncrowded one of the same strain.) But popping produce needs certain shapes to pop well; shapes that allow the appropriate pressure to build up (if you don't get this, trying popping popcorn kernels from an ear that got bad pollination and therefore has it's kernels malformed). I have no idea what shape the Nuna beans are (Alan said they look like "normal beans" but that covers a great many shapes) but I sort of assume they are on the shorter and rounder side of bean seeds. So crossing with a bean whose seed is long and thin (like a green bean) quite flat, or kidney shaped might very well scuttle any popping ability for good.
Actually based on that, I wonder if the ideal bean for crossing might be one of those Sand Hill refers to as Appalachian beans, since those are supposed to be as near to perfect spheres as beans get.
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Post by zeedman on Feb 2, 2016 22:03:43 GMT -5
Actually based on that, I wonder if the ideal bean for crossing might be one of those Sand Hill refers to as Appalachian beans, since those are supposed to be as near to perfect spheres as beans get. Crosses with some of the Romano-type beans might be interesting too. Some of those have seeds that are nearly spherical... and imagine a popping bean with the productivity of a pole Romano. |
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Post by DarJones on Feb 20, 2016 1:49:50 GMT -5
Nuna beans have to be fat ovals to pop properly. I trialed several lines from Jim Myers a few years ago and found only one line that is well enough adapted to both grow reasonably well and produce a decent size crop. The only bean I've ever grown that is both a fat oval and adapted to my climate is Sicitalian Black Swamp bean which I got from swamper and grew out to send to Sandhill 2 years ago. I have some Condorcita nuna beans from ARS-Grin that I plan to grow this year on the east side of my house so I can somewhat control the amount of light they get. With a bit of luck, I will get them to set a few beans. I will also grow a few of the Sicitalian Black Swamp beans at the same time to see if I can get them to cross. I'm hoping the combination of traits will be acceptable to produce a productive temperate adapted pole popping bean.
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Post by diane on Feb 20, 2016 21:23:57 GMT -5
Has anyone tried popping any non-nuñas?
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