Favas - Broad Beans - Horse Beans - Pigeon Beans

[12540dumont]

When I grew the Crimson Flowered it went into the grex. The following year I had some with pink edges and some with pink flowers. However, none were ever just plain Crimson again. There were fewer Crimson flowered than others. I love the smell of fava beans. I'd wear fava perfume! I've picked about 6 pounds of beans already from the one patch.

A good reason for planting later is not for seed production, but simple cover cropping. It's much harder to till in a 4' plant than a 2' plant. Right now, even the 2' plants are producing beans. However, they are producing beans at a much much reduced rate. Looks like 2 beans per plant. I'll try and take a photo today.

I have some favas that sprouted wild in the field. They came up in a patch where favas were last year. They are a very nice intermediate size. I saw a documentary about potatoes grown on an island and when they tilled at the end of the season, they tossed in wheat. When the wheat was done, the potatoes went in. I wonder if I could till in favas at the end of the season?

Of course the year of no rain brought no favas at all.

[steev]

The downside of tilling-in seed is the probability of seed getting too deep, so some loss, otherwise, it works fine.

[richardw]

Apr 22, 2015 17:22:33 GMT -5 templeton said:

Apr 21, 2015 14:22:57 GMT -5 richardw said:

What was the mutation, Richard?


He had grown a line that had always had the standard white/black flower,one plant one year just had total white flowers.

Its sold through Sentinel Seeds as -
El Beano, broad bean.Pure white flowers. The pods enclose beans that are SWEET, and which remain GREEN once cooked. Try raw.
These broad beans are my own selection, from possibly a random mutation, over 35 years ago. That original, pure white- flowered specimen caught my eye. I much preferred the flavour and colour of its beans, over others. I think you will, too. Kids love them raw,and as such they are wonderful in salads.

If you want some seed Gregg,MP me.

[robertb]

there is a totally white-flowered variety. I'll have to check to see what it's called. I've grown three strains of Crimson Flowered. Two had flowers which were all dark red, the third had a very variable flower colour, from deep red to insipid pink. the latter fitted old descriptions of the variety much better, and I suspect the first two had been selected for flower colour.

[ilex]

Now that you talk about flower colors ... any source for yellow flower fava beans?

There are a some white flowered varieties, some (few) plants show up in my landrace.

[imgrimmer]

petitvilaincanard How does your Favas this year?
Your favas doing well here. We had only -6°C this winter so no selection took place. I sow some of mine beside yours, only 1 survived.

[petitvilaincanard]

Great to hear about some favas I sent around.

Good motivation to do my fava report.

Last winter was kind of normal for me,with some frosts of -5°C
I didn't have significant winter losses for a few years now.
I had to try some way to get some losses.
So I tried extra early sowing,with the first sowing the lasrt days of september-first days of october.
Now,that was a succes! no plant survived the winter,with only 1 of about hundred survivor.

This one,a plant of only 50 cm.
In fact it were the new sprouts formed in spring htat survived.



The next round was sowing about half october.
Not bad eather,with about 80% loss(this is a guess)
One of those patches looked like this 15 april:



In fact these patches appeared heavily affected by kind of blight.
Only new shoots survived.



So I can suppose that frost make bigger shoots sensible to blight.It's not directly the frost but the blight that kills the shoot.The ability of bigger plants to survive frost seems to be related to the ability to send out new shoots.

With some weeding finally the surviving plants recovered rather well.


The patches sowed in november and later developped normally,with a lot of leaves spicckled by the blight,but without significant deterioration of the plants

This is the patch I harvested,leaving many plants for dry beans,and planted with tomatoes,
gosh,that looks messy!


A normal patch


Looks nice with 'blé poulard'
Got to try this again


The feverolles 15 april

And the same 31 mai


And finally peas with rye(nothing to do with favas but I just like this)

[billw]

The disease looks like chocolate spot, caused by Botrytis fabae. It is a common problem with broad beans in warmer climates. I used to see it a lot when I lived in central California.

One thing to be aware of with CS is that it can be transmitted by seed.

[steev]

So what does one do about it?

[imgrimmer]

petitvilaincanard
This kind of disease occur here as well, but later in season. Mostly around the time of harvest.

I found out that small plants (just sprouted or with only some leaves) survive ( mild) winter easier than bigger ones.

I will test your favas next winter again. This winter was too warm normally we have around -10°C for some days with cold nights to -15°C. This should help you better
are you interested in Citrus? With only -5°C you could cultivate some cold hardy varieties. What is the lowest temperature in winter at your home?

[billw]

Jun 1, 2015 19:20:49 GMT -5 steev said:

So what does one do about it?

You can use a fungicide if you're into that sort of thing. Or you can live with it and try to breed for resistance. It is probably pretty ubiquitous in favorable climates, so the latter seems like a better plan.

Breeding tougher broad beans for warmer climates seems like a worthy goal and one that hasn't had much attention.

[ilex]

Jun 1, 2015 19:20:49 GMT -5 steev said:

So what does one do about it?

I live with it. Don't consider it a serious thing. You usually get all kind of problems when it gets warm, which means end of fava beans season anyway.

[steev]

I would suppose sulfur-dusting might help, but prolly not worth the effort, as they're winding down.

[petitvilaincanard]

Imgrimmer,Ilex and myself agree that this affection is not really a problem.
If we continue with sound cultural practice and sound breeding practice it
won't never be a problem The illusion that we don't need sound practice because
we have chemical solutions leeds to the disaster we're observing actually in
agriculture.

I did very early sowing(always talking about autumn-sowing)to see wath happens
and eventually select for plants that can survive frost when there are somewhat
bigger.
I observed that there is a relation between plant size,frost and this special
affection.
However if you have reasonable frost resistant plants,and moderate cold winters
this 'problem'will be insignificant if your plants are small enough when they are exposed to frost.
It's just interesting to see if you can push things further,with bigger plants
surviving colder winters.

By the way the brown spots that occur in hot dry weather,mostly when the plants
are drying and ripening,is probably not the same 'pathogen'
I identified it as 'rust',on heavily affected leaves a kind of brown powder
(the spores) occur and the spots are the fruiting bodies of this fungus.

[ilex]

Yes, there's also a rust. I also get it in hot weather, and in "cold" weather in susceptible varieties. In particular it was pretty bad in "luna de agosto". Went away in spring.

As a side note, all my favas are more than dry. I picked most of my seed crop long ago, and the rest is waiting.