Hawk
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Posts: 22
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Post by Hawk on Dec 8, 2011 4:33:41 GMT -5
I have a keen interest growing edible plants and breeding them. My first plant breeding introduction was with tomatoes. I am hooked for life.  I found this article on Breeding Beans and wanted to share it: www.beancap.org/_pdf/Story_of_Bean_Breeding_in_the_US.pdfI am going to roll up my sleeves and give it a shot in 2012.  |
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Hawk
gopher
Posts: 22
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Post by Hawk on Dec 8, 2011 4:45:42 GMT -5
I would like to focus on green beans... I imagine that for all types of beans the procedure is the same?
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Post by raymondo on Dec 8, 2011 5:29:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the article. Looks like a good read. I too am interested in bean breeding and am hoping to do a cross or two in the coming months. I think you're right about the procedures being much the same for all beans. I've done a pea cross which is similar. The difference of course is the twisted pistil of the common bean which makes it a little trickier.
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Hawk
gopher
Posts: 22
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Post by Hawk on Dec 8, 2011 19:46:18 GMT -5
Thanks for the reply Ray. We will have to swap notes this year... Sounds great!
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Post by davida on Dec 8, 2011 22:47:27 GMT -5
Great information. Thanks for sharing. David |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 8, 2011 23:47:21 GMT -5
Thanks for the article, i looked through it quickly and liked the information it contained.
This upcoming year I'm going to devote some space to a new landrace of beans I'm starting. I'd be happy if there was some natural crossing that occurs, but i may eventually try hand crossing varieties as well. The varieties i'm including are Zuni Gold, Anasazi, Dapple Grey, N.M. Black Appaloosa, N.M. Red Appaloosa, Rio Zape, and Four Corners Runner. I'm going to throw in some Black Turtle, Great Northern, and a pole bean variety named "Pebble". I'm not sure if they will all stay in the landrace, but we will see what comes out of it in time.
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 9, 2011 1:54:02 GMT -5
"Unlike soybeans, beans have been neglected as a biotech crop by the private sector. The limited acreage base of the crop and the diversity of market classes limit its attractiveness as a commodity for investigation."
Thank God for small favors.
If two genes are tightly linked (close together), it may
be impossible to break that linkage, so traits controlled by these genes are always associated together. This may be useful if traits are valuable but negative linkages impede breeding
progress.
Oh the folly of man. I don't suppose anyone ever thought that 2 traits associated together might prevent something like Famine?
Beans are my life. I have been growing beans since I was 10 years old. New varieties are bred to be harvested by machine and pray tell, what happens when we can no longer use the machines? Note the plan to eliminate varieties that are not easily harvested. Does everything have to be easy?
GM in beans....ewww...no thanks.
Those of you out there who read this from beginning to end, stick with pole beans. They are the beans that are not being defiled.
To that end, I have been saving every pole bean I come across. As you have read in my thoughts about Italian Landrace beans, not every trait is something I'm looking for, but it might be something YOU may need at some time. A bean that spits it's seeds out sounds ridiculous, but if it happens that you can't plant due to war or insurrection, a bean that replants itself might not be out of line. A bean that re-sprouts in fall without any further tilling and only irrigation might also be worthy.
I don't choose beans because they are easy to harvest. Some of these had pods that would blister a dockworker. So what good is a tough pod on a bean? How about bad weather? I dunno. But I'm not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater yet.
My point is here, is that some of these researchers have spent too much time in the university working for corpse corp, not in the field working with small farmers.
Take it with a grain of salt, or maybe two, unsalted beans are not very palatable.
Hawk, please don't take this personally. I love beans. I love people who love beans. I love people who plant beans. PM me and I'll send you some beans. Just please, don't GMO my beans.
Your's truly and full of beans,
Holly
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Hawk
gopher
Posts: 22
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Post by Hawk on Dec 9, 2011 3:42:00 GMT -5
Hey Holly!
We would get along just great... The "M" word and GMO's give me the creeps...
It is funny that you mentioned pole beans because that is what I had in mind. My Papaw (Grandfather) has always told me to stick with pole beans. His favorite pole bean was a white greasy cutshort bean that may not exist anymore. I am on a quest to find this bean if it still is around. My grandparents said it had the best flavor and yield of any bean they have grown. They said that this bean had white seeds. Their second favorite bean that they still grow is Kentucky Wonder. I have always been a serious gardener. Breeding plants is of high interest to me. I enjoy watching things grow and paying attention to the details. No laboratories in my backyard!
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Post by raymondo on Mar 1, 2012 20:28:51 GMT -5
I take it back that crossing peas and beans is similar. It's only similar in as much as you try to put pollen onto a stigma. I tried a bean cross a few weeks ago. What a fiddly procedure! It is quite difficult, at least with my paws and poor eyesight, to untangle the anthers from around the pistil. It is also difficult finding pollen. Peas produce gobs of pollen and it's easy to see. Beans appear to be more stingy with pollen production. Anyway, I did what I thought was the right thing. I now have a swelling pod but whether I inadvertently selfed the thing or managed to transfer some foreign pollen onto the stigma is anybody's guess. I'll just have to wait and see what the next generation brings! At least I should know as soon as the seedlings germinate, assuming purple is dominant to green (and yellow), because I used pollen from a purple podded bean and pollinated a yellow podded one.
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Post by cortona on Mar 2, 2012 3:25:13 GMT -5
Holly as you know i love you, and i will help you in every way i can but...i'm for the bush bean, i know the pole are more productive and al the good thing but having a ful time job my principal issue is to mantain work at minimum, so bush bean(i love to eat beans...a lot!) are my way to do it and....for me too no gm on my beans please! never!
this year i'm starting a beans landrace in order to selecting for resistence to drought and that is the year...never see in my life a so dry winter season....we will see wath happens!
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Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 2, 2012 5:17:53 GMT -5
I've been growing a cutshort bean "landrace" in with my corn for several years now. I've been hoping to see some crossing but haven't so far. We have lots of wild pollinators, I even feel like I've seen bumblebees working the blooms. I wonder if beans are so heavily inbreeding that they need to be in a stressed condition to outcross, like wheat? I've never even tried to open a flower and hand pollinate.
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Post by davida on Mar 2, 2012 10:38:15 GMT -5
Hey Holly! We would get along just great... The "M" word and GMO's give me the creeps... It is funny that you mentioned pole beans because that is what I had in mind. My Papaw (Grandfather) has always told me to stick with pole beans. His favorite pole bean was a white greasy cutshort bean that may not exist anymore. I am on a quest to find this bean if it still is around. My grandparents said it had the best flavor and yield of any bean they have grown. They said that this bean had white seeds. Their second favorite bean that they still grow is Kentucky Wonder. I have always been a serious gardener. Breeding plants is of high interest to me. I enjoy watching things grow and paying attention to the details. No laboratories in my backyard! This website has several white greasy cutshort beans listed: heirlooms.org/catalog.htmlHope one of these is the one that you are searching. David |
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Post by raymondo on Mar 2, 2012 17:13:39 GMT -5
Sounds like an interesting mix turtleheart. Nice looking bean there too. Similar colouring and pattern to Scarlet Beauty, a kind of gold streaking on red.
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Post by traab on Mar 2, 2012 18:56:06 GMT -5
Great close up turtleheart! The seed in appearance reminds me of a dry bean grown in New England-US.
I have deliberately planted two varieties to intertwine to increase the chance of native insect pollinators crossing the two- just for fun. My challenge had been to get a very early pole bean to blossom while the late to bloom potential cross was in bloom. No obvious change in seed appearance yet but the seed of each will be planted for the next few years. Noticing the crossed plants will be the challenge. I really like the late bean for flavor and seed color and would like an early maturing version to escape mexican bean beetle devastation and early Fall cooling. The early bean is related and a favorite for flavor and growing quickly.
A year ago I covered plants of the late bean to induce early flowering and I noticed a few early flowers but a great effort with a garden away from the home. Of course hand crossing and tagging would likely be more productive and time consuming.
Beans often do cross and sometimes the genetics is carried to later appear in later generations. I had traced a bean to its source to find it had been identified in a garden and resembled a variety from long ago perhaps a cross had occurred and the genetics emerged again. Speculative and interesting garden fun. And I do not know worth a hill of beans! Just beginning to learn.
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Post by raymondo on Mar 3, 2012 16:48:03 GMT -5
Hard for the nectar sippers to move pollen in these. Yes indeed. The spiral nature of the central part of the flower makes hand pollination quite difficult. I broke a good number of them in my attempt. |
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