Breeding Beans

[jim]

Its obvious there are multiple understandings of horizontal and vertical and QTL and monocultures etc. on this forum. Some accurate, some not, some practical, some not...
It seems like a circular discussion that just keeps moving..."and what about X....and what about Y"...not sure its very productive...

Why would genetic engineering be useful only when we can reconstruct a genome? First off, it has been attempted with bacteria, I believe...and it didn't work, so we are a long way away from that...all that repetitive, non coding DNA really does have a purpose that we may never figure out.
Secondly, It just doesn't make sense that a "human constructed corn" plant would be better, or more conducive to genetic engineering than an existing genotype.
It appears you may not be fully aware of all options here...an example would be the use of artificial chromosomes that carry a cassette of genes and is inherited as the native chromosomes...this has been done in corn, no need to recreate the wheel.
BNF in grasses? Already happens....without genetic engineering. Rhizobia have been found as endophytes in plants such as rice, where they do contribute to the total N inthe plant. Rhizobia also form associations with wheat and corn roots and provide some benefit. This association is not nearly as efficient as in a legume nodule...but I think that maybe the science has moved in a direction at maximizing what is already there, and forgetting about engineering nodules for now (Im sure some work will continue...).
As a field, plant breeding is moving very quickly. And it is not limited to large corporations. I understand it can be hard for most people to keep up with the technology.
Jim

[DarJones]

it has been attempted with bacteria...and it didn't work

It did indeed work. A complete genome was constructed from building blocks just over a year ago. Venter's company did it. To make sure it could be verified, they inserted specific verifiable dna codons.

This is still a long way from fully understanding how the codons work together and being able to manipulate them into a different form.

DarJones

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 7, 2012 0:34:21 GMT -5 DarJones said:

I get pretty torqued up when an outbreeder like corn and an inbreeder like tomato and a clonal group like potato are all lumped together and treated like they can be managed the same way, i.e. get a bunch of varieties together and select the best adapted. The advantage of getting a bunch of varieties together and selecting the best only works when sexual reproduction is involved.

The only vegetable crop that I grow which I worry about for this reason is garlic... I have planted about 50 varieties of garlic, and I select mostly for those that are best adapted to my garden, and secondarily for diversity regardless of productivity, but they are not reproducing sexually, which means that the crop is at an evolutionary dead end... For lack of a better descriptor, I still call them a landrace. Perhaps we'll get the sexual reproduction problem taken care of in the next few years.

Egyptian onions are also a clone, but since I think I know the genetic makeup of the interspecific hybrid, it should be possible to breed a genetically diverse population.

I am fine with a modest rate of adaptation of tomatoes, because if the cross pollination rate is as high as 5% I grow enough tomatoes to get 20 new F1 genotypes per year. By the time I account for any F2 to F4 plants that might be segregating, perhaps as much as 20% of my crop in any given year might be of distinct genotypes. Most years, an additional 20% of the crop is imported genotypes that I am trialing for the first time, so that makes as much as 40% of the tomato crop genetically unique individuals. Between the natural crossing, and the imported genetics it has been easy to develop a tomato landrace that thrives in my garden. Long-term, I will be selecting for flower shapes and/or insect species that lead to higher rates of natural cross pollination.

Looking at potato blossoms with their protruding stigmas, and the clouds of pollen that are released from the anthers when jostled, and the high rate of bumblebee jostling, I think that they have high rates of cross-breeding. Potato seedlings grow slowly, so they are harder for me to keep alive long enough to transplant into a field, but in the years that I succeed, I might increase the number of genotypes among my potatoes by 2X to 5X. I have somewhere around 250 genotypes of potatoes growing in my garden today. [About 30% of the individuals are genetically unique from any other potato plant in the patch. These are the first year seedlings being grown to evaluate suitability to my garden. Two clonal groups each account for about 10% of the plants in the potato patch. These are being grown primarily for seed. The remaining patch contains about 50 clonal groups. These are being grown primarily for food. They contain somewhere between one to twenty hills per clone.] One of the standard operating procedures for my potato crop is to routinely eliminate every potato plant and tuber from the gene pool that fails to produce seeds. My long-term breeding goal for potatoes is to grow them as an annual: direct seeded into the garden and tubers are only used for food, but not for planting.

[jim]

What you are talking about is different Dar...they copied the entire genome, put it into a different cytoplasm, and it generated the original bacterium, this is not the same as what you suggest in your earlier posting.
Jim

[jim]

"The only vegetable crop that I grow which I worry about for this reason is garlic... I have planted about 50 varieties of garlic, and I select mostly for those that are best adapted to my garden, and secondarily for diversity regardless of productivity, but they are not reproducing sexually, which means that the crop is at an evolutionary dead end... For lack of a better descriptor, I still call them a landrace. Perhaps we'll get the sexual reproduction problem taken care of in the next few years."

Landrace is not appropriate for your garlic Joseph..."Mixture" would be a much better discription of the population you are growing, if you are not maintianing the clones seperately.
Jim

[oxbowfarm]

Here's a problem, that awesome article on how to cross common beans that jim linked to is gone. Or at least moved since a website change and I cannot find it. I don't actually remember the information in there other than it involved hooking the anthers from the pollen bean over the stigma of the mother flower. Like a fool I didn't copy and paste the thing to keep forever. Does anyone else have a new link to that article?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The awesome pdf article is currently available at:
bean.css.msu.edu/_pdf/bean_pollination.pdf

[oxbowfarm]

My thanks Saint Joe.

[raymondo]

I've tried twice now to cross beans. Two failures! They're delicate little beggars and I'm rather clumsy on their scale. I will continue to try though.

[davida]

Mar 4, 2013 16:37:47 GMT -5 raymondo said:

I've tried twice now to cross beans. Two failures! They're delicate little beggars and I'm rather clumsy on their scale. I will continue to try though.

Ray,

Thanks for the update. Keep on trying and let us know when you have success. Then please walk us thru the process that worked for you.

David

[12540dumont]

David, here's a way to cross beans in the states:

First plant a bunch of flowers that entice beessss.....monarda is a great one, lots of herbs tend to do the trick, now plant beans.

Leave the flowers in long rows and plant the beans, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1,2 and the more flowers.

Typically by the end of the season, you will have found crosses between 1 and 2. IF you have bees.


Now, it's really hard to tell if a bean has crossed. Sometime they show up in the seed coat. Sometimes they don't show up till next year.

Sneaky leetle fellas those beans.

In my case, it's harder to keep beans from crossing, and I have to resort to all kinds of measures.

[raymondo]

I want to cross a bush with a pole bean. Perhaps I should let the pole sprawl among the bush beans and herbs! Hmmmm...too haphazard for me.

[davida]

Mar 5, 2013 0:34:46 GMT -5 12540dumont said:

David, here's a way to cross beans in the states:

First plant a bunch of flowers that entice beessss.....monarda is a great one, lots of herbs tend to do the trick, now plant beans.

Leave the flowers in long rows and plant the beans, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1,2 and the more flowers.

Typically by the end of the season, you will have found crosses between 1 and 2. IF you have bees.


Now, it's really hard to tell if a bean has crossed. Sometime they show up in the seed coat. Sometimes they don't show up till next year.

Sneaky leetle fellas those beans.

In my case, it's harder to keep beans from crossing, and I have to resort to all kinds of measures.

Thank you, Holly. We have bees. We are trying to delegate some of the fun and responsibilities and my son in law has chosen bees. He has one hive by the garden and he has ordered two more hives for this spring.

I would like to share how Holly's generosity has influenced our family. My daughter, Brooke (30) and granddaughter, Taylor (7) found a new interest in the farm and garden. Last year while planting Holly's peas, I explained how a lady that we had never met was so generous to share her seeds where we could enjoy gardening with good seeds without chemicals. When the peas produced, Taylor picked and ate virtually every one before they reached the house.

This year, Holly included a valentine for Taylor with some seeds. Taylor's eyes lit up like stars and she was so proud. Later she asked her mother, since I am learning to write, do you think that possibly Holly would be my pen-pal.

Hopefully, when Taylor is 60, she will still be planting Holly's seeds and sharing the story with her granddaughter about the generous lady from California.

Holly, I hope many blessings come your way for being so generous with so many and for "paying it forward".

[12540dumont]

Don't listen to Davida....

It's all tall tales. It's really Davida who's generous. He paid the shipping so you all could get seeds.

[bluejay77]

Hi Everyone !

I have a big bean collection that I grow, and thought I would throw in my two cents in about outcrossing. Bumblebees are the best pollinators for beans and honey bees don't do to bad either. If you got say a thousand square feet bean patch you could have over 100 bumblebees visit that patch in a day. Those bees start early in morning too. In the summer when the beans are in bloom those bees could be working through the blossoms at 4:30 in the morning. Have you ever sat and watched a bumblebee work. They can go through hundreds of blossoms and hour. So with all those bees and how early they get to work. I would say you can be assured of some outcrossing every single season. It's when they have foreign pollen on their tongue and get into a bean blossom that hasn't opened yet and introduce the foreign pollen. You are almost assured a cross. Beans are just a bit more receptive to foreign. I'm sure those bees get into unopened blossoms a number of times a day.

Now if the seedcoat is the marker you use to discover that a cross has occured. You won't see the new seed coat until the second season after the cross has occured. That's because seed coat color is passed on maternally. Any maternal characteristics that are tranmitted won't be seen for until after the F2 plant has self pollinated and matured it's seed. Then actually at that point you are looking at the F3 seed.

I've never tried to cross beans by hand. I've taken bean flowers apart and can see that the blossoms are delicate and the inner workings so fine. I think it would take a bit of practise and maybe the hand of a surgeon to do a cross successfully. I wonder if maybe those magnifiying glasses that dentists use these day would be the thing to have to make bean crosses. I think it would be easier to grow in liberal amounts two varieties together in isolation and let the bees cross them. Then keep growing out their seed to see if you get any crosses.

Anyway if you'd like to take a look at a bunch of pretty beans I have a website about my collection. Go to www.abeancollectorswindow.com to view all my beans. I've got semi-runner, bush, and pole types.