("Gaucho" x p.acutifolius "Black Mitla") x Hutterite Bean

[philip]

I got some beefy resilient grex seeds from Carol Deppe four years ago. I grew them once two years ago and multiplied them.I then also got seeds of the hutterite bean because i thought it was great that they are able to quickly turn into mush when being cooked. I remember reading in Carol's book that she thought she hutterite bean was pretty tasteless, so i thought back then that it would be great to cross the two in order to get a great tasting bean that melts into a puree.
I had also grown the hutterite bean one year to multiply my seeds of which i had very few.
This year i helped some friends plant beans and there were two rows left so they said to bring bean seeds if anyone had some.
So i planted all my beefy grex and all my hutterite beans in two long rows next to each other.

Now harvest time came and to my great joy while shelling the beefy grex i noticed some light pale green beans in the grex that had exactly the hutterite bean colour so i think they crossed. I shelled all the dry pods and hung the rest of the plants up to dry. I then took all the beans and put them in a jar with dry rice so they could dry further.
I then took them all out this morning to take pictures of the pale green ones and THEY WERE GONE!

In fact they have changed colour and became yellow like lots of others. I was quite disappointed about that and i didn't even know that beans can change colour after drying.

But then i went to the plants that were drying and sure enough i found another beefy grex pod with light green coloured beans like the hutterite ones.
I did grow this grex before and there were no beans whatsoever that had the hutterite bean colour so i really think they crossed.

These are hutterite beans:


This is the beefy resilient grex:


This is the pod with the light green coloured grex ones next to the hutterite beans:


And another direct comparison: (notice the difference in shape;you can already see two starting to turn yellow)


Like i said when i grew the grex two years ago there were no beans that had such a light colour that matches the hutterite one so i think they must have crossed.

However i have no clue how to continue now. I still have lots of plants from the grex waiting to be shelled and a whole load of hutterite plants that i have to shell aswell.
Who knows, maybe i'll find some hutterite beans that are now yellow, Brown or black and that crossed with the grex.
These latest cream coloured ones i found this morning are being kept separately and my idea is to only grow out those ones next year.
But how do i continue from here?
How can i evaluate the taste and "turning into mush when cooked" characteristic of so many different plants? (next year)
If i cook the beans of one pod of a plant and they taste great and "melt" just as well as the huttérites does that mean that all other beans in the pods of that same plant will be the same?
Does it make sense to grow only the cream coloured grex beans AND different coloured hutterite beans (that should indicate a cross) if i find any?
Suggestions and advice welcome!

[philip]

And here comes the proof. The exact same beans after 11 hours in dry rice. Nearly completely yellow now.

[philagardener]

Interesting! Glad you have some insight into what seems to be happening, philip .

In reading your description, it wasn't clear to me whether you think these seeds are first or second generation plants after the original cross.

If you still have pods drying on plants, it would be worth trying to save these by plant (and even have a few to taste). The grex from Carol Deppe has a fair bit of genetic diversity, so you might want to plant out these seeds in those groups to see what you want to pursue, and then you might have enough to cook up too!

[Walk]

Oct 8, 2016 12:46:21 GMT -5 philip said:

And here comes the proof. The exact same beans after 11 hours in dry rice. Nearly completely yellow now.

Marfax beans start out as creamy colored when picked while pods are still moist. They dry down in a day or two to the Swedish brown bean color.

A friend who lives in the Netherlands brought us some bean seed this spring. One of them looks like Hutterite but with long vines, it should have been trellised. It's called Citroen Boontje (lemon bean). I plan on cooking some up to evaluate it's attributes, but I think I'll grow it out to increase it next year. We didn't get her seed until about 3 weeks late, so I didn't expect much as they were planted so late. They did OK but will plant them at our normal time to trial against our tried and true varieties.

[philip]

Quick update on this thread.

The first time i grew the beefy resilient grex the plants were hung out to dry for ages, so they were all bone-dry when i shelled them.
This time round there was quite a few green pods while i was shelling.
So the light green ones turn yellow, the purple ones turn black and the pink ones turn Brown when they dry.
Nothing crossed. No mystery there. I got it wrong!
I was an easy mistake to make but a mistake nonetheless!

[philip]

Amazing variety of colours in the not-yet-dry- mix of beefy resilient grex beans.






Comparison of half fresh and dried beans. The light green, blue and pink colours disappear in the drying process!