Tepary Beans

[blueadzuki]

Jul 23, 2013 2:33:23 GMT -5 DarJones said:

nice photos of flower structure.

Both beans have now gotten anther flush of flowers so I can show you why I am getting so confused. Both of these are SUPPOSED to be P. vulgaris as far as I know and fort portal pretty much has to be (unless there is a kidney tepary)

Fort Portal

Bantu


as you can see, both have that split bottom, like the tepary flower had

[oxbowfarm]

Blue, from looking at vulgaris vs acutifolius flowers in my garden, its not the split so much as the direction of the wings. There appears to be a lot of variation in vulgaris flowers in color, size and "fluffiness" of the wings and standard. Some of the wings are tight some are split, but all the vulgaris flowers I can see in my garden hold their wings parallel to the axis of the keel and the rest of the flower. Does that make sense? The wings are projecting forward along and parallel to the keel. Tepary wings are held much closer to perpendicular to the axis of the keel although not all the way to a 90 deg angle. Instead of being parallel with the axis of the keel they are closer to parallel to the face of the standard. Those flowers you are showing are definitely vulgaris, with the forward projecting wings in line with the keel.

I've been noticing some other differences between Mitla Black and Blue Speckled. The pods are very very different. Mitla pods are pretty standard round bean pods, they are very fleshy and cylindrical.




Blue Speckled pods are very membranous, flat, and sparsely covered in fairly long, fine hairs. They actually look a lot like very large Siberian Peashrub pods. Very unlike any vulgaris pod I've ever seen. Even flat Romano type pods are much thicker and fleshier than these Tepary pods.

[blueadzuki]

Well there's another odd bit; the pods on both the Bantu and the Fort Portal mixed are also very flat and both are hairy though the hairs are presumably fairly short and dense (I can't see them so well, but the make the pods feel very rough and sticky). the Bantus look almost EXACTLY like the pods on the blue speckled right down to the extreme bulges at eat seed node ( the fort portals are a little flatter and not as sticky. I'm not questioning your assessment, but every time you seem to show a comparison, my bantu beans seem to look more like your teparies in the equasion than your standards. Actually now that I think of it, even the bantu seed looks rather tepary like, it's smallish roundish and has that dark ring around the hilum that a lot of them do.

[oxbowfarm]

I think the best way for you would be to grow a tepary alongside them. I'm trying to show good pictures of what I'm seeing, but it cannot compare to seeing the entire plant at once from many angles. From your picture the Bantu flower is very vulgaris.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I did germination testing on the F4 seed of "Resilient Bean Breeder". I grew out Holly's F3 seed this summer and separated the beans into three categories: 1- too long season for my garden which I ate as food. 2- Short season bush beans which I intend to replant. 3- Somewhat longer season pole beans which I saved for seed but don't intend to plant.

I cooked up a batch and ran germination testing on them. About 10% of the beans are hard and do not absorb water during cooking or germination testing. I hear that this is an ancestral trait of beans, but it doesn't work for me, so before planting next year I intend to pre-soak the beans and only plant the ones that absorb water quickly.

[steev]

Tepary beans are reputed to take long-cooking and since they are also small, I'm thinking they're candidates for sprouting.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The gray-speckled tepary beans sprouted at 100% for me this fall. I used them in a stir fry. Very nice. The variety that I got from Steev has had enough selection done on it that I didn't get any strongly dormant seeds with a coat impervious to water. They cook fine as dry beans. The pods still pop though, so I harvest by picking the whole plant and tromping them or beating on a tarp.

[flowerweaver]

For me the most interesting thing about tepary beans is they are considered an ephemeral, having a lifespan too short to even be considered an annual. Their adaptive strategy is to not put out a lot of leaf, so there's less transpiration. This makes them ideal for growing in the desert southwest where the planting is often timed with the brief rainy season. Drought actually increases their production, something I've noticed is true of many of the native plants growing where I live. The problem for us has been weather patterns are so disrupted we don't know when our rainy season is anymore!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jan 20, 2014 14:40:11 GMT -5 flowerweaver said:

For me the most interesting thing about tepary beans is they are considered an ephemeral, having a lifespan too short to even be considered an annual.

Now I feel like crying... My growing season is so short that even the ephemerals end up getting killed by fall frosts.

[flowerweaver]

Joseph Lofthouse I'm truly amazed by the productivity of gardeners with short seasons, honestly I don't know how you do it. To get everything planted, harvested, and put up in that amount of time would feel like a marathon to me.

[12540dumont]

To me the best thing about Tepary's may be their drought tolerance.

[steev]

The current California drought is such that I really doubt I have the nerve to run my well when I'm not there; last year I was nervous, having the riega on auto.

Therefore, I have little hope for things that want watering more than once-weekly. Although I intend to mulch heavily, I think teparies, sorghum, and cowpeas are looking like my quantity crops, leaving me enough water(ing time) for my trees and such, plus a little for things that want more water, more often. This doesn't look like a good year for salad.

[flowerweaver]

steev The most drought tolerant green we've grown is magenta spreen lanbsquarters. It's not very good raw, but cooked it's tastier and more nutritious than spinach. It's sort of invasive if you let it go to seed, but it's beautiful and I'm in total awe of any plant that can go without water for 11 months and still feed us. It's looking like another droughty year for us, too.

[blackox]

This might seem a little back wards or pointless, but could I get a Tepary Bean that is tolerant of short periods of wetness through a landrace, while keeping it's drought tolerance?

[steev]

More water tips the plant's balance to more plant/less pod, not a big problem.