Mass Cross/ Landrace Runnerbean Project

[oxbowfarm]

Is that three different varieties or just one mixture Paco?

[ilex]

That's my landrace project for the last 2 years. White is mostly Tarahumara Bordal, the others mostly come from very crossed up material of 3 varieties from Rascafria. I think I'll be able to rescue the white one, the pinto and the black might be extinct in pure form. Very rare genes there.

[blackox]

Oxbow, it looks like the shell bean varieties on Kitazawa's website may be P. Coccineus.

www.kitazawaseed.com/seeds_shell_bean.htm

[oxbowfarm]

Thanks for the heads up blackox. I'll pass on them though. At this point I've got 30+ cultivars and more have been promised to me, so I don't really have a need to buy commercial seed to find diversity. I'm not saying those Japanese runners aren't unique, but I've found most of the unusual beans I've received are coming from private bean collectors rather than the commercial sources. This project has already been and education in the diversity within runner beans.

[blackox]

No problem, 30+ cultivars is a lot of beans. Do you have the Canellini runner type yet? I've got some, nothing absolutely amazing (pure white) but they will give you some more material for your project.

[oxbowfarm]

Yes, I think I have 5 or 6 of them.

[kantuckid]

Just for sake of regional growing information: I live in eastern KY and my neighbor has grown the Scarlet Runner bean and had plenty of pollination & bean pods.He ate a few of his but mostly was just a try & see how they look thing. We grew them last year just for ornamental purpose in our "front yard,raised bed, herb garden" and likewise they grew just fine with plenty of pods. The seeds came from common, everyday, Wally World 35cent seed packs.Hummingbirds seem like them so maybe they are a pollination factor here? We also seem to have plenty of insect activity as cucumbers,beans,squash,etc. pollinate well.

[reed]

We grow Scarlet Runner and Painted Lady mostly for decoration and it seems like temperature is a factor in setting pods. We have lots of bees and hummingbirds so they do get visited but only a couple years when it was cooler than normal did we get a lot of pods. Also one time I grew them in considerable shade and got lots of much larger pods, I don't remember what the weather was like that year. Big pods brushed with olive oil and grilled were excellent.

At Bill Best's seed swap this year I got two packs of some mixed up ones from a grower in Eastern KY. They are larger than the SR and PL with some all white, some really pretty purple, some black and various shades of brown. Only have 5 of the white and 7 of the purple. He said a white one for example would not necessarily produce white. The folks at the next booth argued with him about that but he grew them so I am taking his word for it. They are supposed to be something his family has grown for a long time and since KY gets just as hot as it does here I'm in hopes they do well.

I'm just going to plant them all together in a spot with some afternoon shade and hope to get lots of seeds.

[flowerweaver]

Will be interested reed to hear how that turns out for you. I had heard from many people 'they can take the heat' so last year for the first time I planted Hammond's Painted Lady in a similar situation with some afternoon shade. They produced lovely flowers, but I didn't get one pod (and they were relatively unscathed by the tornado). If I ever grow them again it will be in the front yard for decoration.

[Al]

IMG_1288 by portobell0, on Flickr

Here's a picture of runner beans saved from my crop of a variety named Enorma. It did well for me this summer, no problems with flowering or setting, the only difficulty was eating & picking them quick enough. Because we had a couple of weeks away from the garden when the beans were coming thick & fast they got too big.

So I collected a lot of ripe beans & am not too sure how good they are to eat, I threw a few in a soup & they seem alright. Anyone got an opinion on how to deal with them in the kitchen?
I was struck by how attractive they are & the variation in the markings, some towards the front of the picture are almost pure black, would selecting the black ones for re-planting next year tend to yield more beans with the dark markings in the future?

Someone I know was raving about Cherokee Trail of Tears, & The Real Seed Catalogue describe it as 'simply the best bean', so I will definitely be growing them next year. Real Seeds call it a pole bean, will this be likely to cross with the runner beans? Not that this is a problem just interested to know what might appear in the future years. I will also have some climbing beans & some dwarf French Beans on the plot. These questions may have already been discussed in other threads so I will keep reading.

[robertb]

No, it's a French bean so it won't cross. It's a good bean though.

[squishysquashy]

Any more updates with this project? I grew runner beans last year and they seemed happy. They flowered, but like many of you mentioned, they did not set pods, even in our unusually long, cool spring this past year. I will be attempting a similar experiment with a few varieties just to see if I can get pods. Has anyone in "The South" ever been successful in getting a seed crop from runner beans? If anyone knows a variety that will even sort of reliably set pods in the south, I would love to hear about it.

Thanks,
Emily

[diane]

Runners are supposed to do really well in England, but apparently they have problems with non-setting even there.
The Royal Horticultural Society has advice about that: www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profile?pid=381

Here is a part of that article:

The main causes of failure to set pods are:

Lack of moisture at the roots

Poor soil or growing conditions, such as acid soils below pH 6.5,

Lack of pollinating insects

Very hot weather, especially at night, which inhibits the germination of pollen grains, interrupting the pollination and fruit-set process.
Cropping should resume in September, once the nights start to cool down

[robertb]

We can get problems in very hot dry summers, but they're a bit of a rarity over here.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

As an update on my runner bean project...

I had decent success in the 2013 growing season. I harvested approximately as much seed as went into the ground. I was very encouraged. It was the first time I've harvested runner beans after years of trying. So in 2014 I planted about 150 seeds. But I planted them in the sunflower row. That was a mistake. Too much competition. So I only harvested 19 seeds, and half of them look too immature to be viable. But I still have some 2013 seed, and some collected from swaps. So I'll give it another chance this year. I inherited t-posts from my grandmother last summer, so I'll try my hand at building a trellis for the runner beans.