|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 21, 2012 17:20:20 GMT -5
Planted this for the first time this year, source was Seed Dreams.
I must say I am really impressed with its precociousness, that really has to help make it a good survival bean. It starts prolifically flowering from the second leaf node on up amd keeps on climbing. I expect most or all of the early flowers to abort in this heat we've been having, but in a cold wet, short-season type of a year I could see it setting seed on those early flowers and getting a crop off of it that you wouldn't see on any other pole type bean.
It has been pretty badly attacked by a very large flea beetle, never noticed them before. They look like your regular brassica flea beetles but are about 5 times larger and with more prominent jumping legs. Their attacks don't seem to be slowing down the runner beans though.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 21, 2012 18:26:46 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on Jul 21, 2012 19:32:27 GMT -5
Hey, I'm having those flea beetles as well. Ruined lots of greens, chomping eggplants, generally making a mess.
|
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Jul 22, 2012 0:06:06 GMT -5
I love the flowers on runner beans.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 22, 2012 20:31:26 GMT -5
Just noticed today that one of the plants has pale white or possibly pink/salmon flowers. Be interesting to watch it, I'll have to flag the plant if I want to remember by the time the pods dry down.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Aug 13, 2012 18:28:54 GMT -5
Now that Blackcoat has a bunch of pods growing I've noticed that they turn purple when they are in full sun, the ones in the deep shade stay green. I've never seen this before but I haven't grown many varieties of runner bean before, pretty much just grew the standard scarlet runner.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Aug 23, 2012 11:37:14 GMT -5
Is that why they're "Blackcoat"?
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Aug 23, 2012 21:38:17 GMT -5
I think it is more because the seeds themselves are completely black, without any purple marbling like you see on the standard scarlet runner.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Mar 2, 2013 18:00:20 GMT -5
Turns out the white flowered plant produced all white seeds. I figured it was a cross that occurred at Seed Dreams at some point, as white is likely recessive to black it could have been hiding in there for some time.
But browsing the SSE online Yearbook I was able to look at past listings for Blackcoat. Here's a quote "2005: 90, showy red-orange flowers, attractive to hummingbirds, needs support, very tasty, mine occasionally throws a plant with pure-white flowers and seeds, white seeds planted in a friend's garden produced normal red-flowered and black-seeded plants, as I have never grown another var. of this species and know of no one else who grows this species within many miles, the genetic origin of these variants is unknown, dates back to 1654"
Sounds to me more like a transposable element turns the black off in blackcoat every once in a while. I can't see any other way a white bean would revert to black. I'm going to plant the white seed separately and see what happens.
|
|
|
|
Post by zeedman on Mar 3, 2013 0:13:27 GMT -5
Apparently, instability in "Blackcoat" is fairly common. When I grew it several years ago (with seed obtained through an SSE exchange) I too had some white-flowered plants, and rogued them out. After harvesting the dry seed, there were still abnormalities... so thinking that my seed had been irreversibly contaminated, I chose not to save it & gave it all to a friend for cooking. The impurity in the dry seed was pure purple. The source had told me that he had tried to isolate the all-purple seed, without success. Looking back, I wish I had kept some of that seed to try my own hand at selecting it. The color filter on the camera was set wrong, the all-purple beans were really a deep orchid purple.  |
|
