Problems with dwarf french beans

[michaeljohnson]

At the moment I am having a few problems with seed of two types of dwarf French beans,

All my runner beans germinated ok and are growing nicely in rows-but the dwarf french beans that are sown in long drills or furrows about a couple of yards away from them, are very patchy with poor germination results, out of about a hundred seeds sown -only eight plants have appeared, so I sowed a few more still left in the packet and am hoping

For some reason or the other the little devils will not seem to germinate well, and I cant think why.

Both varieties are from the same reputable firm in the UK, the actual beans themselves look perfect as far as the seed goes- so I am pretty peed off with them at the moment, and all the seeds were within the required sow by/ date, printed on the packet- I think they were good (or supposed to be) until may 2011.

Any ideas

When I dug up a few to see how they were doing after a couple of weeks-most were swollen and fat looking as though they were about to burst forth-but "No"- not a bloody bean ;D

[mnjrutherford]

That's very interesting. I've had some germination issues with beans as well this year. I had 4 "Piekny Jas", a Polish soup bean, seed and only 2 germinated. I didn't try to examine them, just took it for granted they were not going to perform. That was not AS surprising to me as the fact that the rattlesnake beans didn't germinate. Rattlesnakes are common here, not to mention an excellent flavor and textured round bean.

I'm of the opinion that the issue is temperature related. That is only a guess however and based on what I learned about that mysterious long bean I grew last year.

[michaeljohnson]

You are probably right, but what I cant understand is that all my runner bean seeds germinated ok and are growing fine, only five or six foot away from the dwarf been seeds, and if they did-why not the dwarf beans seeds. ??

[mnjrutherford]

My best guess on "why one and not the other" would have to be that the particular species (or would it be variety?) have a very specific temperature toggle with a tolerance of no more than 1 or 2 degree variance.

I would further guess that different species have both different temperature preferences for various activities (germination, growth, blossoming, putting on fruit, etc.) AND different temperature tolerances (1 to 2 degrees, 3 to 4 degrees, etc.).

Taking that thought yet one additional step further, I would have to guess that over the next 5 years gardeners around the world will discover increasing numbers of "old reliable" seeds, not performing as expected because the earth is in change mode and the plants are naturally going to be the first to notice and report these changes because they are closest to the earth.

I would have to say that by watching our seeds carefully, gardeners will be the most informed and best prepared people group because we have the widest variety of "advisers" telling us what is going on. By having world wide access to various seeds, we will be able to switch out things and acclimate other things much more rapidly than mono-culture farmers. We will also be better prepared to acquire and maintain seed stores that will buffer us from the potential ravages of climate change.

Hope I'm not extrapolating this to far or reading to much into a few seeds failing to germinate.

[grunt]

Jo: Farther to that, I think we will also be doing a lot more "wintersown" type things, or attempting to condition seeds to withstand more cold and wet conditions. I think it is something we should discuss directly. The reason I say this has also to do with beans = I noticed beans "volunteering" from seed that obviously escaped the harvesting last year. Given the lack of ability for beans (with the exception of favas) to survive cold wet soil, the "volunteers" should not have happened. But, they had spent the winter basically on top of the soil, with no shelter at all, and withstood several frosts after sprouting (as much as 2 degrees C = almost 4 degrees F), including the light frost that toasted most of the beans I had transplanted out. To me, this suggests that the overwinter conditioning must have played a substantial part in their ability to survive the cold and wet soil in the spring. I intend to do a very late planting of some beans this fall, to see if there is anything to the idea. I'll do block plantings of several varieties, and see if there is any difference in survival rates. Any comments/suggestions? I'd particularly like to hear form Martin on this.

[mnjrutherford]

hmmmm... that is a very interesting observation Dan. VERY interesting. Runs along the same lines as my thoughts as well.

BEANS - I was toying with the idea of putting out a few seed beans at the end of the season in the creek bed area around some of the larger trees. Runner beans of course, as the trees would be perfect for them. I think I'll also put out some bush beans here and there in small patches to mimic the occurrence of a fallen bean or two.

TOMATOES - Now this really got me going along these lines... I've lost 7 of 36 tomatoes to viral wilt so far. I know there are a couple more at least that need to be pulled. Just haven't gotten that done yet. Our friend, who is the county extension agent mentioned, "Yea, it's tomato virus wilt. That's caused by the thrips. But you shouldn't loose to many more because it's almost the end of the season now."

Well, that got me to thinking... Maybe I shouldn't be trying to start my tomatoes at the crack of the seasonal dawn. Maybe I should wait until such time as they would normally sprout? I have several volunteers from last years tomatoes that are only about 6" high. I've also got a fresh flat of 32 seedlings just starting to sprout and the few survivors from the first flat are about 6" high as well.

Maybe, JUST maybe, we shouldn't be rushing things the way we are accustomed to?

[ottawagardener]

As for tomatoes Jo, I've had very similar thoughts. I've been thinking about leaving some short season/sauce type tomatoes - sauce because you tend to harvest all at once and make sauce - under an open style cloche so that they volunteer just a bit earlier. My volunteers are young but my indoor/outdoor toms have baby fruit. The indoor/outdoor thing is similiar to wintersown but I bring them in at night or when it is REALLY cold.

[ottawagardener]

Dan, I am VERY interested in this and intend on doing trials to see if I can encourage the volunteer trait under our conditions. I have never seen beans do this though but I have heard people talk about volunteer peas - again nope for me. Hida Manns overwintered a planting of potatoes successfully this year.

[robertb]

Potatoes have no problem overwintering unfortunately; that's how blight persists over winter. The difference is, they're underground out of reach of the frost. Beans overwintering would be a surprise in the local climate, but maybe yours is warmer.

[grunt]

Robert: I'm zone 6 a/b. Normal winters get down to about -23C (-10 F). This year stopped at -13 C (8 F) but yotoed most of the time from -5 C (23 F) to 8 C (46 F) with rain or snow.

[ottawagardener]

Well I do have potato volunteers that I miss and remove - hence removing blight but I know that she used her own breed of potato without blight (or assume so).

Our winters are colder, getting down to -40 but usually hovering between -10 to -25. The difference is that we generally have thick, consistent snow cover so I get quite a few things making it through.

[raymondo]

I regularly get bean volunteers. The night winter temps are often around -5°C but there is never a cover of snow. I don't usually allow the volunteers to grow as the space is needed for other things.

[mnjrutherford]

This is all very fascinating. I think that 10 to 20 years from now we will have a shocking appreciation for how vital our collective observations, at this point of time, have been.