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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 17, 2013 23:07:33 GMT -5
I reviewed another source for phenotype description of tepary beans. Additional differences in phenotype between teparies and common beans that were not included in my previous list are: | Tepary Bean | Common Bean | | 1st true leaves are narrow (length about 2X width), truncate, and have strikingly short petioles. | 1st true leaves are blocky (width and length about equal), cordate (heart shaped), and have long petioles (around 6X longer than teparies). | | Have a dull seed coat. | Have a glossy seed coat. |
The first photo posted by OxbowFarm is the classic exemplar of a tepary. The second photo is the archetype of a common bean. Also considering the glossy look of the black seeds, I'd definitely classify this particular "Mitla Black" as "Common Bean". |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 18, 2013 4:46:07 GMT -5
Mitla Black IS a tepary bean, Phaseolus acutifolius. That family isn't very big but quite varied. The 3 which I have grown were quite different from each other. Black wanted to climb, Blue Speckled wanted to become a bush 3' wide, and Sonoran Gold just didn't want to do either. Instructions for planting them are usually about the same as bush snap beans. Try giving the blacks and blues at least a foot spacing for best results. Blue Speckled is capable of producing a plant 3' wide with 300 or more pods if given room and nutrients. I've seen it! I've got both of them planted 8" spacing beside a fence this year to test their climbing abilities. Martin There's mounting evidence that would indicate you may be wrong. Just saying it IS Phaseolus acutifolius doesn't make it so. The reason I'm doing this side by side comparison is to try and get a close look at Mitla Black and really key it out. Especially since Mitla Black is showing some non-teparylike traits and is credited with making an extremely fertile cross with Phaseolus vulgaris. The literature says that's impossible without embryo rescue, yet Carol Deppe reportedly had 5% of her Gaucho bean crossed with Mitla Black? My suspicion at this point is that Mitla Black is Phaseolus vulgaris but has a remarkably tepary-like phenotype till you look more closely. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 18, 2013 5:30:41 GMT -5
The first photo posted by OxbowFarm is the classic exemplar of a tepary. The second photo is the archetype of a common bean. Also considering the glossy look of the black seeds, I'd definitely classify this particular "Mitla Black" as "Common Bean". Joseph brings up another good point. There could very easily be a number of different beans out there all labelled "Mitla Black" some of them might be teparies and some common beans. I purchased my Mitla Black from Peace Seedlings in Oregon. Since Alan Kapuler is personal friends with Carol Deppe and they live in the same town, it seemed extremely likely that he was her original source for her Mitla Black. I'm personally interested in figuring out if the Resilient Bean Breeder is a wide cross or not. I think by the end of this season we should have that answer. Whether or not there are black teparies out there going by the name Mitla Black is another interesting question. It would be interesting to compare Mitla Black seed to the Black tepary that Native Seeds/SEARCH has. I probably should have bought that one for this comparison test but Joseph had already gifted me the Blue Speckled. |
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Post by raymondo on Jun 18, 2013 19:08:45 GMT -5
A few more to add to the list | Tepary bean | Common bean | | Primary leaves (the first true leaves) have short petioles, almost sessile | Primary leaves have relatively long petioles | | Bracteoles (at base of flower) smaller than the calyx and elongate-triangular | Bracteoles same size or larger than calyx and rounded in shape |
Joseph...how did you get the lines to appear in your table? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 18, 2013 22:55:46 GMT -5
Joseph...how did you get the lines to appear in your table? I use the icon to make a table. There is a check box at the bottom of the dialog box for "border". |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 18, 2013 23:08:11 GMT -5
I'm personally interested in figuring out if the Resilient Bean Breeder is a wide cross or not. I have about 150 plants of Resilient Bean Breeder growing. I think they were marked F3. I examined each plant today. There was zero segregation for tepary phenotype in the primary leaves. Every leaf was heart shaped, blocky, and attached to a long petiole: The classic vulgaris phenotype. There were no primary leaves with tepary phenotype, and no intermediate traits. It's been enough generations that the previous growers (Carol and Holly) could have selected against tepary traits, but Carol said that she hasn't, and I don't think Holly would have. If this was an inter-species cross I would expect some segregation of phenotype. |
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Post by paquebot on Jun 18, 2013 23:19:06 GMT -5
Google or Bing mitla black bean and there will be one site which calls it P. vulgaris but gives the same history that all others give it as P. acutifolius. If you know where to look, there's Bisbee Black with dark gray seeds and Pinacate Black with dappled ebony seeds. There is also just plain Black but little information. www.bing.com/search?q=mitla+black+bean&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC Martin |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 19, 2013 1:36:32 GMT -5
It wouldn't be the first time that Google or Bing indexed inaccurate species names, or that seed companies or growers misidentified a plant. Because every phenotypic trait that I can measure for this particular black bean matches the archetype for Phaseolus vulgaris, then I am going to believe my own measurements and trust my own judgement before I believe a search engine or a seed company: Even if that means I have to question the work of two of my favorite plant breeders.
Resilient Bean Breeder is a valuable genetic resource, even if it is not an inter-species cross.
If there is a "Mitla Black" that is "Phaseolus acutifolius" and a different one that is "Phaseolus vulgaris" then it would be nice to figure out which seed companies or SSE members are offering which species. It seems clear to me that the seed from A. Kapuler which is being grown by OxbowFarm is "Phaseolus vulgaris".
I was going to buy a packet of the "Black Mitla" from Native Seeds/SEARCH tonight. We'd know in two weeks if it is tepary or common bean. But alas, it is no longer listed in their online store.
I meant to mention in a previous post that there is also no segregation for dull seed coat vs glossy seed coat in Resilient Bean Breeder: They are all glossy like a common bean. When I look at images for "Mitla Black" there are some seeds that seem dull (could be from dirty seed) and some that are glossy. Redwood Seeds offered the dull looking seeds in their 2012 catalog. I'll check on availability.
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Post by raymondo on Jun 19, 2013 5:48:06 GMT -5
Oops, didn't notice Joseph had already added the characteristics of primary leaf petiole length. Sorry for the double up.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 19, 2013 7:05:33 GMT -5
It wouldn't be the first time that Google or Bing indexed inaccurate species names, or that seed companies or growers misidentified a plant. Sounds a bit like me and the professional rice beans. I am always rather interested in companies offering seed of this crop as seed (as opposed to "as food" which is how all of my material was aquired) since I am still trying to figure out the short season version, and I tend to think versions sold as garden seed in this country have to be it (since I have doubts that a company would keep selling a seed if 80% of the people who bought it never bought it again due to it not producing for them.) For a while Baker Creek had seed listed, but when I wen't to buy some, I found it was discontinued there. However I did a little poking around and found someone who had bought them and who informed me that in fact, what baker creek had been supplying was in fact a small seeded cowpea, not a rice bean (even though they had gotten the species name for a rice bean right) so it looks like there is confusion there (there is also a P. vulgaris called a rice bean, but since that looks NOTHING like the real thing, I think that is an example of two vegetables from different regions of the world having the same common name, the same way that there are Eastern European "winter melons" that actually ARE melons, as opposed to Benicasa gourds, or the Rocotillo pepper which one might expect to be a C. pubescens isn't.) While I can't confirm it (sinc emy crop failed and again seed is no longer avialable) I have also suspected that Richter's Seed Zoos "Serian Jungle Cucumber" was in fact a melon not a cucmber based on it's seed shape (in that part of Southeast Asia, where there are both round orange dosaki type cuckes and round yellow Asian type melons, this could just be possible, and there are certtainly melons out there that are used as cukes (the Armenian Snakes and the Italina carosello types, for example). Thats actually another I have seen seed companies offer the Italina cuccuzzi as "snake gourd", as opposed to the Tricosanthes . Common names are often imprecise; that's why we have binomial nomenclature (and in the future DNA cladistic programs) |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 19, 2013 14:37:40 GMT -5
Oops, didn't notice Joseph had already added the characteristics of primary leaf petiole length. Sorry for the double up. I don't mind at all. I learned a new vocabulary word as a result of the post: "Primary leaf". And in a few months when they are blooming, I'll re-read the post to learn that other vocabulary word that had something to do with the flowers. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 19, 2013 20:31:21 GMT -5
Additional noted differences, the Blue speckled is already rapidly enlarging the second set of true leaves. That is quite different behavior from most other beans I have grown. The common P. vulgaris strategy seems to be to put energy into enlarging the primary leaves with all the stored energy in the cotyledons before the primary leaves feed the secondaries via photosynthesis. I have seen bean secondary leaves grow very quickly after germination but almost always when the seedling has lost the primary leaves somehow. Blue Speckled, and presumably other tepary beans, is using a different strategy.
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Post by steev on Jun 19, 2013 21:56:32 GMT -5
No question that acutifolius isn't vulgaris; the first survives July on my farm, the second, not so much, (however much I want buttered green beans); one must persevere, in any event. On down the road, I want green beans scrambled with eggs from my flock, in tacos with tortillas from the corn I've grown. A small ambition, I suppose, but there will be inevitable spin-offs. Did I mention community engagement?
I was talking with the young man who relates to the horses on my back ten; he didn't know there was corn other than "yellow sweet corn". Lord love a duck! My work is clear! These heathens must be brought to understanding of the Green Man and Nature's Diversity!
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Post by paquebot on Jun 20, 2013 21:30:16 GMT -5
Thought of something else about the teparies. I'm not growing the black this year but only the blue speckled. For those who are growing Mitla Black, where are the cotyledons? If they are aboveground, they could be P. vulgaris as that is one of the determining factors. If they are underground, not P. vulgaris.
Martin
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 20, 2013 21:53:52 GMT -5
Joseph, I made absolutely no selection in the Resilient Bean Breeder. (RBB). I grew about 50% of the package that Carol sent. I sent you and others here exactly what came out of the patch. There were no other beans even close to this bean. It was a straight plant, harvest every seed and replant. However, I will say, that some of these are coming up again in the same patch.  I love beans. |
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I love beans.