Chickpeas/garbanzos

[Carol Deppe]

'Hannan Popbean' is a variety I bred myself from USDA landrace material from Morocco. It is NOT that material from Morocco. That landrace stuff was all over the map with maturity times varying from early July to so late it was just thinking about starting to flower in October. All the later plants needed irrigation. Seed sizes from tiny to fairly big. Seed #/pod from 1 to 4. Plant size from 3 inches to 3'. Plant form from a ground hugging vine to quite erect. Very resistant to soil diseases. Some plants resistant to the many aphid carried legume diseases, but more than half badly affected and many actually died before yielding anything.

'Hannan Popbean', planted in March in Willamette Valley Oregon, matures in late July and needs no irrigation. The plants are about 2' high. Most pods on most plants contain one big seed. It's black and brown mottled, as is the USDA material. But it is also resistant to every aphid-borne legume disease Willamette Valley Oregon, a hotbed of such diseases, can throw at it. And it is still of course highly resistant to soil borne diseases. I sell it through my seed company Fertile Valley Seeds. To see or download or sign up to receive my the seed list see www.caroldeppe.com.

[philip]

I have been growing the "hannan popbean" chickpea variety from Carol Deppe for two years in brittany now. Last year i sowed 12 seeds and only 2 germinated. I harvested 190 chickpeas from those two plants.

I was quite happy about that. This year i sowed 50 chickpeas and got 38 plants, 33 i planted out and left 5 in pots for backup. No slug damage like the year before. The plants grew very well so i was looking forward to a good harvest and maybe some homemade hummus. Today i harvested and shelled 11 plants ,a third of what i grew that have been hanging upside down drying in my shed for 2-3 weeks

I got 194 chickpeas from my eleven plants. Pretty bad result so far. Problems this year were rodents eating quite a few chickpeas, a type of mould/fungus on the pods causing the chickpeas to rot and get soft and pods that were just empty. I also selected for one chickpea per pod and discarded any pods with two or three. I read that Carol recommends this in order to have equal size chickpeas for popping.

I tried popping some but it didn't really work. They didn't increase in size but just cracked. They tasted good though. If i had gotten such a bad result the first year i would have probably stopped growing them but the first year was so good that i know they have great potential. As you can see in the picture some chickpeas are still fresh and green but i think they will dry anyway. I am not sure if the pods are still rotting while they are drying. I am wondering if selecting only the chickpeas from pods with one pea will result in more plants with one pea per pod. I suppose and hope that selecting and replanting only the best chickpeas year after year will result in this variety becoming more adapted to my garden and to cool, moist conditions in general. I gave seeds to several people and am curious to hear how the plants did for them.

i had posted this in another forum before. The tied-up plant bunches got rained on before i could hang them up so i think now that the moisture inside contributed to rotting in storage.

[Carol Deppe]

Philip--The popbeans only expand just a little and crack open when parched/popped. After successful popping they taste good and have a flavor and texture like a nut. So you popped them just fine. Selecting seeds from plants that produce mostly one-seeded pods is effective in increasing the proportion of 1-seeded pods (and big seeds). But selecting seeds from one-seeded pods versus 2-seeded pods on the same plant should not make any difference, as it is the mother plant that controls the number of seeds/pod, not the genes in those seeds. Most plants in the variety produce mostly 1-seeded pods, but nearly every such plant produces a few 2-seeded pods too.

[Carol Deppe]

We don't have to irrigate Hannan Popbean here in maritime Oregon because we plant in March, when the ground is quite moist from winter rains, and additional rains occur regularly through April. And we harvest it in late July, and the residual soil moisture is vanishing just about the same time as the plants are drying. Whether you have to water is going to depend upon your weather patterns. I only say it can be grown without irrigation under my weather patterns, not anywhere. And it can. I have never irrigated it.

[philip]

Well thank you Carol for breeding this great chickpea variety. I hope i will manage to adapt it to my locality over time.

[ottawagardener]

Hannan popbeans do well for me Carol and Philip in Ottawa, Canada. Probably the most productive variety I have in the mix. I find that coastal stuff that performs due to lower heat units (peppers, etc…) do well, if not great for me so often trail stuff from the west coast.

[12540dumont]

Someone from this group recommended I try some things from Palouse Brand, a company that provides the source for their crops. I decided I was going about the whole Garb thing wrong. I need to find some that we love to eat, and then try to foil the gophers.

So I bought the Palouse Kabuli type. They arrived on Monday, I soaked them overnight and made hummus tonight. That's the fluffiest hummus I have ever made. Now to outwit the gophers....ha ha ha. I'm going to try planting some in Jan, Feb & Mar...

Now if only I could find the Ceci Neri!

[steev]

My bulk-bin garbanzoes are starting to produce; the gopher is starting to drag them underground; I gave it a quart of urine as an eviction notice.

[mskrieger]

ottawagardener, when do you plant your Hannans and how long do they take to maturity in your climate? Have you observed how they grow in temperatures above 27C (80F)? (Do they suffer and get diseased, or do they look OK?)

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I plant garbanzos first thing in the spring, into fall tilled soil. If I don't have them planted by the time the forsythia are blooming I consider myself way late.

[steev]

The ones I planted this year (bulk-bin whatsit) are podding well; guess I'll eat them, seed being readily available; their performance this year tells me to plant a larger area, so I can both eat and save seed.

Vaguely related: the black soy I planted last year (and left one week too long, so that they all shattered) have just started sprouting; depending on how numerous they become, I may transplant them (if few) or not till them (if many). In any event, their performance last year tells me to plant a large patch next Spring; they may be a crop I can reasonably naturalize. I'm a tad leery due to reports that eating too much soy can have a feminizing effect, but really, a nice rack could only enhance my presentation in an evening gown, though I'd still not be "at home" in it.

[mskrieger]

Steev--I had no idea you were into evening gowns. How often do you have occasion to wear them?

Joseph--thanks for the planting timing. As I understand it, you climate can get quite hot during the day time and yet still have freezes at night late into spring, right? So how hot can it get during the day before the garbanzos start to noticeably suffer?

[steev]

Actually, that's just a reference to a post from flowerweaver; I've never been into the J Edgar Hoover thing.

On my place, garbanzos easily put up with 90*.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

mskrieger: I've never had occasion to wear an evening gown, but for bumming around town there are few items more comfortable than a denim skirt. So much freedom, and fresh air...

I haven't noticed garbanzos suffering from heat. I just reviewed my photo archives... Turns out that I'm harvesting garbanzos the first couple weeks of July which is about 4 weeks after our weather turns from cold/frosty to hot/dry. So hard to say if they are suffering, or if they are just completing their life cycle. I plant them about the third week of March, which is when our snowcover typically melts.

[mskrieger]

Wow. I am so excited about garbanzos! They don't need heat, but they are tolerant of it...that could work here. Thanks for the growing details Joseph and Steve!
(The denim is quite fetching, by the way.)