soybeans -fall before the seeds can be saved

[littleminnie]

I had one nice row of edamame. I picked the green pods for about 3 weeks. I left a decent number on to save the seeds. Little did I know that soybeans don't hold and dry on the plant like green beans. Today I found all the pods had split and lost the seeds. I wasn't sure if I was going to grow them next year but I might and I am bummed I lost all my seeds.

[robertb]

Between pigeons and sickness I've lost a lot of seeds this year. It's one of those things; get some more and try again.

[raymondo]

I wonder if it's a variety specific thing. It didn't happen to mine but then it was raining on and off so I had to harvest as soon as they looked ripe enough. The seed was collected over a period of days, maybe a week.

[Walk]

We harvest our edamame seeds when the pods start getting brown splotches of color, then bring them into a sunny windowsill to finish maturing/drying. Chipmunks and other rodents will go after them if left too long.

[hiven]

Sorry to hear your lost ! I grow several types of soya beans this year, but only a type of edamame. I usually harvest mine when the plant starts to turn yellow and shed leaves. Cut whole plant and let them dry in the shed and then hand shelling them.

[cortona]

i have the same problem ....all the pods split and lost the seeds, and i've not tasted nothing to maximaise the seed arvest..zob :-(
wel, somebody can give me the name or a source for a variety of soy that can be used as dry beans?

[wildseed57]

This year was the first year after a two year period that I didn't grow any, I planted about fifty plants and had quite a few bushes that did well and the beans where pretty tasty, As my sister found out that once the pods start to dry you do need to pick them as they start to twist and will pop open and a lot of the beans were lost at least till next spring when what was missed by the birds and mice will come up on there own.
I'm hoping to find a black soybean that will do well where I live, also I seen a soybean plant that was being grown in Thailand that looked like it was a climbing type which I didn't know there was, so I will have to see if it is a true climbing soybean or something else even though I was told it was a soybean, It sure would be nice to find a soybean that was a climber as it would save me a lot of back pain
George W.

[blueadzuki]

Sept 27, 2010 23:21:25 GMT -5 wildseed57 said:

I'm hoping to find a black soybean that will do well where I live, also I seen a soybean plant that was being grown in Thailand that looked like it was a climbing type which I didn't know there was, so I will have to see if it is a true climbing soybean or something else even though I was told it was a soybean, It sure would be nice to find a soybean that was a climber as it would save me a lot of back pain
George W.

Take this advise as you will (I haven't grown any soybeans (at least cultivated ones) on purpose for quite a while (In fact I think the last time was whne I put those rows of Agates in when my sister said she had developed a taste for edamame, that would have been at least ten-fifteen years ago!)) but if you are looking for a climbing soybean, you might be better off searching among the asian strains, and the older ones at that. Climbing is a characteristic for soybeans, that is typical of older strains, ones more close to the wild ancestor (certainly the out and out wild soybeans I've grown from time to time are all climbers and scramblers. I gather that most of the modern soybean strains are bush types mostly because that was the preferred type for a very long time, for ease of harvest. A climbing vine is perfectly fine if you are growing a small to medium patch of it and can set up stakes (or something else) for it to twine around, but if you are growing a whole field of them bush tend to have preferecne, as vines left on thier own on that scale more often than not become a snarl (I sometimes suspect that, had the Native American peoples NOT had corn (or if dometicated corn had wound up being a plant the same size as wheat or barley), bush type bean strains would be the norm for the western bean varities as well). I would imagine that one or more of the soybeans I've culled from my rice bean packets probably is a climber, as some of them may have been from bean strains used for green manure, where being a climber would not be considered a detrimental trait (if you are just going to plow the plants under anyway, it probably doesn't matter if they are a mess, and climbers tend to put on more biomass than bushes). IF next year I do plant my stores and IF it turnst out there is a bean or two which is a climber and is still of a usable size (a few of my picked out soybeans are just too small seeded to be easily usable as food) and I get a reasonable crop off of it, I try and put some to the side for you.
As for a black soybean, if you are desperate, you could always simply buy a bag of black soybeans designate a section of your growing area as an experiment ection sow some of the seed from the bag see what comes up, and save the seed from whichever ones actually make all the way through thier life cycle (apart from the fact it did not do it with intent that's basically waht I am doing with my rice beans). There is a smallish very shiny, sort of graphite colored soybean that comes from Korea, that I seem to recall as being particualry vigorous if that helps (one thing though it has a very high incidence of seed with green cotyledons, so if you are planning to make tofu or some other product, the color may be a little funny) I am planning next year (besides may growing out my bean bag finds) on planting a few very large black soybeans from Japan that I saved for thier odd shape (I'd never seen soybeans that were basically completely spherical before) I'll let you know how they work (Im a bit farther north than you, so if they do well for me, they'll probably do great for you). hope something here helps