Anasazi beans and off-springs

[Andre]

I tried to grow Anasazi beans this year then I saw the beans on the left and I did just harvest beans on the right...

What happened ?

Does the white appears later when dry ?


Anasazi beans and off-springs

[ferdzy]

I'd say you have a cross there. Did they all turn out like that?

I've had 2 noticeable crosses in my bean garden this year. People say they don't cross easily, but people are wrong, in my estimation.

How many beans did you plant? Are they all solid red?

[blueadzuki]

I'd say either a cross or somehow you got off type beans in. It is possible to find solid colored beans in variegated populations (for both colors). But everything about yours seems off, the shade of red, the size, the shape. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that you said the beans looked normal when you planted them, I'd call someone slipping you the wrong seeds.

[dustdevil]

If there is no crossing or mutation, the offspring should resemble the bean seed you planted.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I'm agreeing with blueadzuki on this one... Children tend to resemble their parents, and there is little resemblance between these beans and their purported mother.

[steev]

Appears to be a case of cuckoo beans.

[hortusbrambonii]

Those left ones do look quite cool though. Are those the alleged 'found at an archaeological site and planted' Aztec beans? Long seazon drying beans then I suppose?

[blueadzuki]

They're ONE of them though the Anasazi are a different tribe than the Aztecs (I doubt that there are many food remains left from the Aztecs; living in the Mesoamerican jungle, nearly everything organic left around eventually rots. The Anasazi on the other hand were desert dwellers, so things often dry and mummify well if put in the right place.) There's another bean called the New Mexico Cave Bean that looks similar (except the red parts are brown) and for which a more or less identical story is told.
Ultimately however the whole story is most likely bunk. The longest record for bean seeds maintaining viability is around 50 years, not the 9,300 or so the story claims. Most probably, some archeologist digging around the south west found these beans being grown by the Native Americans around there (so the beans are probably DESCENDENTS of beans grown by the Anasazi (who now that I think of it, some archeologists DO think might have been related to the Aztecs so you might not have been all that off initially) and thought a creative story would make them more attractive and desirable. Oh and before you ask NEITHER of the Anasazi corns (the floury one offered by Seed Savers) or the Sweetcorn offered by Sand Hill have anything to actually do with the Anasazi, both, as far as I know are modern creations.
I suppose the Old World analogs would be some of the stories I heard at some point about some of the einkorn wheat strains on the market having been grown from seed retrieved from Neolithic burials, or in Egypt the whole "mummy wheat" and "mummy peas" thing or the so called "King Tut" vegetable strains, the field pea, the grass pea, the tomato(!)

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 30, 2013 7:40:01 GMT -5 blueadzuki said:

Oh and before you ask NEITHER of the Anasazi corns (the floury one offered by Seed Savers) or the Sweetcorn offered by Sand Hill have anything to actually do with the Anasazi, both, as far as I know are modern creations.

Based on the traits of those corns I'd say this is accurate, they look too different from the Hopi phenotype, and too similar to modern Iowa corn.

[blueadzuki]

And of course there is the fact that the Sandhill IS a sweetcorn. As far as I know, Native American tribes (at least north American tribes, I don't want to try and make guesses about Mesoamerica and the Andes) didn't grow a lot of sweetcorn, the short season of use, higher pest issues and fairly limited number of thing you can do with any leftovers once they are too old to enjoy as corn on the cob (Native Seeds mentions pinole, but as far as I can tell, pinole counts as a luxury food, not a staple) made going for a "roasting ear" type corn usually a better option for your "green corn" (at least then, when the crop is too old for corn on the cob, you can grind the rest) Again going to Native Seeds, of the eight sweet corns they sell most (possibly all) only have antecedents dating back to the 1800's (i.e. a time period where the influx of habits from Europeans had presumably already well begun.) By that period the Anasazi had been gone for centuries, if not millennia, so little chance they would have had a sweetcorn. And the color mix screams "modern breeder breeding for multicolor" same as for Alan's Astronomy Dominae.

[DarJones]

I'll modestly disagree on this issue of sweet corn and how old the mutation for it is. There is evidence of several mutations to the su gene with the most prevalent seeming to have originated in South America. A couple of years ago, I read an article about a novel mutation to su that was found in a field corn variety. It was genetically distinct from all other su corn. There is some evidence that sweet corn dates back several hundred years and was deliberately selected and grown by native North Americans.

From a general perspective, incorporating a new gene into a genome is a very long term proposition that usually takes hundreds to thousands of generations. Disabling a gene once it exists is far easier and can occur in a single nucleotide mutation event. As evidence of this, I would submit that "black" tomatoes such as Cherokee Purple, Black From Tula, etc are a good example. There are 5 known mutations to the chlorophyl converter gene that result in black tomatoes. The + version of the gene causes chlorophyll in the fruit to convert to lycopene. Any disruption of this gene results in black tomatoes because the chlorophyll is retained over the red background. Note that there are at least 2 bio pathways that lead to lycopene, one of them starts with chlorophyll, the other starts with carotenoids. A similar situation holds true for the su gene. It is a case of disabling a gene that already exists. Over time, there must have been numerous mutation events in this gene.

Corn was first domesticated about 8500 to 9000 years ago, had a major genetic event about 3500 years ago, and had a third major event about 1500 to 2000 years ago. The original ears of corn were about 2 to 3 inches long and had 2 rows of kernels. Soon, 4 rows of kernels showed up in the record. These "ears" were not produced like modern corn, they were made on the stalk just under the tassels. The first major change from this was multi-row ears up to 5 inches long. These were still produced on the stalk below the tassels. The change that made all the difference was when a mutation caused a side branch to fail to extend and instead to enclose the corn in the leaves. Given the sheer number of billions of ears of corn grown over the years, su mutations must be common as dirt.

[blueadzuki]

Okay, but barring any proof to the contrary, I still doubt that there is anything Anasazi in Anasazi

[Andre]

Here's one more proof that gardener's have to be patient !

4 days later, the pigmentation is changing and white calico starts to appear.


Anasazi beans - Day 4


An other example in this video : www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPYC4np7Y-k&t=5m41s

[galina]

Andre, the pigmentation change you see is normal for this bean colour. Almost pink initially, then brownish red. I cannot see white developing from your photos and I don't think you will get white patches developing. The red bean resembles the cultivar Crochu de Montmagny, including some of the beans being of the 'cutshort' type, ie with squared off ends where they got squeezed together in the pod.

Did the pink/red beans on the right all come from one plant as far as you can tell? If they came from more than one plant, then a cross is unlikely. If it was a cross and you replant, you will get all different plants, pods, flower colours, harvesting dates etc next year. Next year would be the F2 generation grow-out, which is very variable and a joy to watch.

If you replant the pink/red beans and get the same again, rather than all different plants, then you know that you are dealing with either a mutation from the original, or with a seed mix-up. If your red seeds came from more than one plant, a mutation is unlikely.

You will know more if you can work out whether all seeds on the right hand picture came from one plant or from several plants. And you will get further answers from growing out these seeds next year.

I hope you will follow these up and it would be great if you share with us what happens.

Just one more comment -   If you have a cross, the cross would not have happened this year, it would have happened the last time this bean was grown. If the seeds were new to you, and looked like Anasazi seeds, that does not mean they were pure-breeding. The seed coat is maternal tissue and always looks like the mother plant, but the germ inside the seed coat could already be a cross. I have been given seeds in a swap many years ago that were white and white flowered, but one of them grew into a plant which flowered purple and produced different coloured pods. There was no way my seed-swap partner could have known that this one seed was crossed, because it looked like the pure breeding seeds from the mother plant. However, I just love all the beans I got as a result of that cross. Such a delight to follow this up and create a brand new bean variety of my own.

If you have a cross, or a mutation, you can name it and you have, or can create, a brand new variety. Have fun.

[Andre]

Hi Galina, Thank you for your detailed answer.

Yes the pink/red beans on the right all come from one plant I will definetely grow out these seeds next year and share.

I think my Anasazi seeds were indeed not pure-breeding. I bought them in a Whole foods store in Florida last spring. These seeds were sold to be eaten so unpure breeding is possible if the grower grows many varieties which is often the case. But I thought beans would not cross this easily.

What is the sowing distance to respect between 2 varieties to maintain pure breeding with beans ?