Recommendations for Runner Beans

[benboo]

Hey everybody. I am planning to grow some runner beans along with the usual beans this year. Besides scarlet emperor, are there any really good cultivars out there? I would prefer shorter season if possible, and possibly cold tolerance. I want to try my luck this summer with some bean crosses, so anything genetically diverse is good too.

I am also going to try and grow out Phaseolus polystachios from Food Forest Farm and see how that works out in crosses or by itself. Any advice or info on that would be great.

Thanks!

[blueadzuki]

If you have the funds to afford it, Richters has a brown and tan mottled runner(they had two runners but the other one seems to have sold out, and once something sells out of the seed zoo, that's it) that might work well (it's from Ijevan in the Republic of Georgia, so one would have to assume it is either short season or cold tolerant, or both)

As for the polystachos, I wish you luck, but you may find them difficult. I bought two of the plants from Food Forest last year, one arrived functionally dead and the other dropped dead about a week after (both arrived with all of the leaves completely yellowed over and dropped them all almost immediatly with the stems and roots drying up a day or so later)

[benboo]

Sorry about your plants from Food Forest Farm. It is the only source for plants as far as I know, so I guess it is worth the risk.

Thanks for the source. That is alot of money for so few seeds, but with a year of saving every seed, it could amount to something.

[12540dumont]

Benbo,

I recommend Scarlet Runners and Insuk's Wang Kong.

[bertiefox]

I'm growing a variety this year called 'Tender Star' which comes from Thompson and Morgan, a Europe based seed company. They claim that it is a combination of the best of French and runner beans with tender stringless pods eight inches long and bicolor pink and red flowers. I will let you know whether it meets their claims once I've grown it.

[Walk]

The white-seeded varieties make great dried beans. They take a long time to cook because of their size, but the flavor and texture are worth it. Kind of potatoey and really good served with kale, onions, garlic, and rosemary.

[benboo]

Are there any good sources out there? Thompson and Morgan has many varieties, but not Insuk's Wang Kong or anything unusual.

[blueadzuki]

Feb 10, 2013 15:44:03 GMT -5 benboo said:

Are there any good sources out there? Thompson and Morgan has many varieties, but not Insuk's Wang Kong or anything unusual.

Sandhill seems to have Insuk's, along with 5-6 other strains

[zeedman]

"Besides scarlet emperor, are there any really good cultivars out there? I would prefer shorter season if possible, and possibly cold tolerance."

Short DTM should not be an issue in NY... and runner beans in general are known for their tolerance of cool conditions. Heat tolerance may be a bigger issue; while runner beans will flower under hot summer conditions, they will generally not set pods until temps drop into the 70's F. This blossom drop can cause wide variance from posted DTMs where summers have long warm spells.

Recommendations on variety would depend upon what the beans will be used for. Used as snaps, I've found only minor differences in taste between all of the varieties tested... far less variation than I've found in Phaseolus vulgaris snaps.

I would second the recommendation for "Insuk's Wang Kong"; it is extremely vigorous, more tolerant of warm weather than any I have grown, bears heavily, and has exceptionally long & free-blooming flower spikes. I only used the immature pods, but the original source for the cultivar uses them as dry beans. It also has considerable genetic diversity, as demonstrated by a wide range of seed colors; all white, all black, and varying mixes of black & purple. My own seed is getting old, so I plan on renewing it this year.

For flavor, one of the best I've tried was "Black Coat". This was also one of the most attractive when in bloom; it almost exploded with bright scarlet flowers. The bloom period was fairly short, though. As the name implies, the seeds are black. The ones sent to me in a swap were impure, so I did not save them. It was interesting, though, in that some of the white-black hybrids produced by the cross were pure purple... looking back on that now, I wish I had kept them.

"Emergo" is one of the more common white-seeded cultivars. If you wish to grow runner beans to eat the seeds, though, I would recommend "Gigandes". It is a Greek cultivar with exceptionally large white seeds, and very good flavor. Dar Jones (Fusion_power) sent some to me last year that he had obtained some from a Greek source, Hellenic Products... but I checked their website before posting this, and they are not presently doing business. Dar & I are both increasing the seed. "Bianco de Spagna" is a similar large-seeded cultivar.

For attractive flowers, I would recommend "Apricot Runner" and "Sunset" (pink flowers). "Painted Lady" and "Tucomares Chocolate" have bi-color red & white flowers. The T.C. has mostly brown seed, with some brown & white mottled, and a fairly good dry seed yield... I've got a good photo of it in bloom (as well as one of "Insuk's") if I can figure out how to post them here.

Sand Hill Preservation carries "Emergo", "Insuk's", and "Sunset". Thompson & Morgan carries quite a few runner beans, including the bush variety "Hestia" (red & white bi-colored flowers), and the pole variety "Tenderstar" (red & pink bi-color flowers). I may try "Tenderstar" myself.

There are extensive discussions about "Insuk's Wang Kong" and "Gigandes" on another forum... would the mods allow me to link them here?

[diane]

I grew two from Native Seeds/Search last year. Aztec White is described as being the fastest-maturing runner at their farm in Tucson Arizona, and it was the earliest one for me, by far, even though our conditions are so different.

I think the reason it is so fast is that it puts out low branches, flowers, and sets pods while the main stem continues to grow taller. All my other runners (mainly English ones from Thompson and Morgan) grew tall before they started putting out flowers.

The Royal Horticultural Society in England has trialled runners and published the results on line.

www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/RHS-Publications/Plant-bulletins/Runner-Beans

[atash]

Blue Adzuki, my plants also collapsed shortly after arrival, but I know why.

They were badly out-of-sync with the seasons, due to having been grown in a greenhouse. One recovered and started growing again, the other seemed to be dead but revived later in the season, and oddly enough actually pulled way ahead of the first. It now has a fairly huge root system.

I've got them both resynchronized to the seasons again. One is thinking about breaking dormancy, the other is profoundly dormant at the moment, and quite small.

[atash]

For scarlet runners, I've been growing Scarlet Empire, derived from Scarlet Emperor.

I tried bush scarlet runners (that sounds like an oxymoron...scarlet bush beans?), but they are not practical: unlike common beans, they have to be cross-pollinated. Bush versions do not hold their flowers out enough for the hummingbirds to find them. I got very poor bean set.

My understanding is that the beans of P. polystachios are edible cooked (might be poisonous raw as is not uncommon in the family), but they are small (not a big deal) and shatter (a big deal).

I think I've read they have the same chromosome count as other beans, but I don't know if they line up right to cross. Eric Toensmeyer was unsuccessful attempting to cross them to P. lunatus, but I would try a geographically closer species first--like P. coccineus.

P. coccineus isn't very cold-hardy, but it can be overwintered here if you get it well-established, in good drainage. A little further south--but not too much further! (they don't like extreme summer heat)--would probably work better. Maybe the Rogue River Valley of Oregon would be ideal to grow them as perennials.

I've heard Scarlet Runners make excellent dry beans but I've never bothered to eat them that way. Just grown them as green beans. I like them better than common green beans. A little more substantial.

Good growing to you.

[oxbowfarm]

I have Blackcoat if you want it Benboo.

[ottawagardener]

Diane: thanks for the recommendations of Aztec White. I have minimal luck with runners here and the ones commonly sold, are mostly decorative.

[diane]

They may be just decorative because your area gets too hot.

I have read many times that people in the U.S. grow scarlet runners just for the flowers, and thought they were silly to ignore the beans. However, the RHS article states that hot weather causes lots of flowers, but the beans won't develop.