Make a Phaseolus vulgaris landrace

[reed]

I am going to try to make a pole bean land race. I have about twenty or so different kinds and have always grown different kinds near each other but don't know that they have ever crossed. I have on occasion found a weird looking bean. I didn't know what it might have been until I discovered this forum.  
Next year instead of growing separate rows of different kinds I am going to make a separate patch with different kinds growing on the same string in the trellis. That way the bumble bees will only have to move an inch or two between kinds instead of a few feet. I'm going to grow them kinda crowded and not eat any of them green.  
This year I found a couple of the weird ones in some black beans. They are more gray with brownish stripes but normal size and shape.
They were not in the same pod. Does any one know, if a visually identifiable cross in Phaseolus vulgaris  does happen, would it be seen on individual beans or would it be the whole pod? If it is the whole pod than what else might have caused the gray beans in the black bean pod?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sometimes bean colors undergo what what I think of as a "Reversal". It is fairly easy to see in a bag of pinto beans... There are usually a few beans in the bag in which the speckles are light speckles on a dark background instead of the normal pattern which is dark on light. If I plant the odd beans the offspring turn out normal the next growing season, so I don't think that the trait is heritable.

I also commonly see it in the Tiger's Eye Beans. Here's an example. About 5% of the beans in this variety might be reversed. The pattern isn't a mirrored image, but rather an alternate pattern. If I plant the red seeds I don't get red offspring, I get normal offspring. I am growing these beans with a white background and a yellow background. The speckles on the reversed seeds correspond with the background color of the rest of the seeds on the plant.



Also sometimes, the seeds change colors as they dry, so if the pod dries unevenly you might get different colored beans in the same pod. I wonder if that is what happened here? Those will tend towards the same color after harvest.



Also, sometimes the pods get mildew which can change the colors of the beans. I think that's what happened with the somewhat-darker colored bean with dark spots in the following photo. The photo also shows a reversal in pinto beans: light spots on a dark background.



Another example of reversal in an heirloom pole bean:

[blueadzuki]

It happens with peas sometimes as well. For a while my pea strain was one that had purple speckles on a green background. But one time one pod produced purple peas with green speckles. Was rather visually arresting, until it dried down (the strain was also marmorated, but since marmorations don't show up until the peas dry down, they weren't visible at picking. So eventually the green areas mostly filled in with brown.

[reed]

The second picture in Joseph's post looks like the situation I found. Beans in the pod look normal except for one. Mildew and uneven drying could definitely be factors as it turned several days near or at 90 degrees with at or near 100% humidity and short bouts of rain almost everyday, weird. I have discarded probably 25% due to obvious mold.
I'v had something like that reversal situation too, like in Speckled Cranberry or Anasazi beans, some times there is an all or nearly all red one but if you plant it you don't get all red from it.

I also got to thinking, if I do achieve a cross or rather if the bumble bees do, I probably wont't know it till the next year. And I am guessing, (in the second year) it would not be just a bean or two but rather all the beans on that plant.

[raymondo]

Sept 1, 2014 18:53:44 GMT -5 reed said:

The second picture in Joseph's post looks like the situation I found. Beans in the pod look normal except for one. Mildew and uneven drying could definitely be factors as it turned several days near or at 90 degrees with at or near 100% humidity and short bouts of rain almost everyday, weird. I have discarded probably 25% due to obvious mold.
I'v had something like that reversal situation too, like in Speckled Cranberry or Anasazi beans, some times there is an all or nearly all red one but if you plant it you don't get all red from it.

I also got to thinking, if I do achieve a cross or rather if the bumble bees do, I probably wont't know it till the next year. And I am guessing, (in the second year) it would not be just a bean or two but rather all the beans on that plant.

Yes, if the bees make a cross this season, you won't see it until you harvest next season's dry beans, the second generation seeds.

[Carol Deppe]

Generally bean crosses do not show up on the crossed up seed. The mother plant makes the seed coats, so it doesn't make any difference what genes for seed coat color are in the seed until the next generation. Likewise, the mother plant makes the pods. When she makes round pods and spaces the seed a certain way they will be one shape. If she make flat pods the seeds will be flat, and so on. In my experience, when you have a legume cross, it never shows up on the seed that first generation.

For example, I grew lots of different pure varieties of garbanzos. Some had purple plants and black seed. Others had green plants and white seed. When I harvested the plants all was fine. All the green plants produced white seed, for example. But when I planted the white seed, for example, I got many pink plants. Whoops. The pink plants all produced black seed.

Phaseolus vulgaris may or may not cross depending upon where you live and what pollinators you have. In some areas of the country people grow different varieties side by side their whole lives and never see a single cross. In my garden, I see about 5-10% crosses with adjacent plants. If you want to produce a good landrace starting with a diverse population with intermixing genes, you might need to help things along by doing some initial crosses. You could hand cross varieties 1 and 2, for example, and 3 and 4. Then cross the two F1 hybrids to give you a population segregation for everything in all four varieties. One simple way to figure out whether you are getting any crosses is to interplant a green-leaved and purple-leaved varieties. The crosses won't show on the seeds. But if there are any crosses you'll get pink plants.

[reed]

I am thinking I might try to cross some beans by hand to see what happens but haven't found much good info on the structure of the flower and when during formation of the flower this should be done.  I'm assuming this is how they make new kinds of beans, other than just waiting for a natural cross to show up. 

Has anyone tried this? Have  any luck? I did find articles about it but had to pay to see them, besides I have gotten much better info and advice here than in other research. 
 

[blackox]

I think that there's an old thread somewhere on here showing how to do it, along with a pea crossing tutorial (I would think that beans would be similar). I do remember that the keels in beans are curled and quite fragile.

[toad]

I made some beancrossing by hand a few years ago, have a look here:
toads.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/bean-crossing/

[reed]

Wow as in WOW, exactly what I needed to know. Thank you! I'm gonna go crazy mixing up beans this summer.

[12540dumont]

Reed, be careful going down this road. You will become a beaniac. Staying up late, looking at photos of beans, trading beans, growing beans, saving beans, crossing beans.

Your family's eyes will glaze over when you talk about beans. You'll find beans in the pockets of your trousers, on top your dresser, on top the washing machine, where you put them when you were washing your trousers.

You'll end up counting beans instead of sheep.

Your fridge and freezer will overflow.

Before long the 12,000 of Phaseolus in GRIN will not be enough for you. You'll find yourself looking longingly at: P. acutifolius, P. coccineus, P. lunatus... and then onto The Desert Legume Program, where you'll find some strange beans. From there it is a slippery slope to Favas, Peas and Cicers.

So many beans, so little time.

[jondear]

Lol I just saw myself in that post...

Not necessarily about beans, but for whatever plant I'm obsessing about at any given time.




Also, I started opening bean flowers last year and said out loud "you've got to be kidding me"..... Those blossoms aren't fat finger friendly at all.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

In November I took beans to a pot-luck dinner. I called them 100 bean soup. The hostess didn't believe me, so she pressured me for a more accurate number... We ended up calling it 80 bean soup. Next year it will be 100 beans soup. Thanks oxbowfarm!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Also see: bean.css.msu.edu/_pdf/bean_pollination.pdf

[12540dumont]

Jack in the Beanstalk...a cautionary tale.


What? Joseph? You need 20 more beans? Pole? Bush? Dry?