Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Aug 31, 2017 21:38:11 GMT -5
philagardener - I've actually started the experiment with Fort already, having planted what I call the "Micro Fort" group, though more fondly known as the 'couch forts.' I had two plants in my original planting from bought seeds that were ridiculously small, maybe six inches, tops. They only produced 12 little beans between the two of them, but they set out pods crazy fast and they dried down before most of the others even had beans swelling. I didn't know if, like you said, it was environmental factors causing it, so I planted those twelve seeds in a separate spot. The plants are currently flowering (I think 10 of the 12 came up) We've had a week or 100+s so far with more to come, and I lost the first one today. But it was never very strong, and hadn't started flowering like it's siblings. Five of the others have already set little beans, while the rest are managing to hold onto their flowers. All plants are six inches or less, most of the little squatties are right around 4.5". In of itself, these itty bitty dwarf beans aren't very useful to me if they only give 1 to 2 pods in their lives. However, if they can also act as a nitrogen fixing living mulch without shading out other plants, I'll gladly use them like some people use radishes - as placeholder, quick maturing crops, with the added benefit that once I chop them the roots will release nitrogen back into the soil. In their current location, they're getting "heat tested." The next step will be to take any beans produced by the survivors and 'shade test' them. I've noticed that when I shade test most bush beans, they increase the space between their leaf internodes and get really leggy trying to reach the light. How this will effect the extremely squat couch forts will be interesting.
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andyb
gardener
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Post by andyb on Aug 31, 2017 23:49:58 GMT -5
The shape looks a lot like the seeds from some F1 common x runner crosses I've made, so I though for a while that you might have gotten lucky with your crossed up bean. I don't think they are, though. Your description of the pod set doesn't match what I'd expect, and the pale purple flowers don't sound right. I would expect most flowers in good conditions to form pods that don't develop at all or develop partially before aborting and falling off, and the three F1 common/runner crosses I've grown out have all had pink or peach flowers. Not a huge sample set, I know, but it's something.
As for guessing the pollen donor, remember that white beans could have any seed coat pattern imaginable that just isn't being expressed because they don't produce any pigments.
I guess you'll find out a lot more when you grow out the seeds!
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Post by steev on Sept 1, 2017 0:34:14 GMT -5
I have no problem whatsoever with breeding; indeed, I greatly favor landrace breeding; my circumstances being such that that's really my only hope of real success. The locals near my farm all get their (small garden) seed from commercial racks and fertilize/irrigate it all to hell. That's really not what I want to do; I'm aiming my crops/trees away from water-sucking whiners, having no abundant water-source, as they also do not. I don't mind coddling some things, but the more things that get by without frequent baths, the better.
Those inclined to keep metriculous records of their breeding: thank you so much; I think we are all indebted to you for your efforts, but that's just not me; most mornings I have to check my wallet to know who I am. let alone the parentage of my plants; one week. I thought I was Ben Franklin; that was a good week, though I'd been mis-informed.
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 1, 2017 5:24:13 GMT -5
They also have the same tendency of Fort Portal to segregate into pole, half runner, and bush. The description for Nonna says pole, but of the twelve seeds I've planted only four are shooting for the sun. Another four or five are thinking about it, and the last few are tiny squatties. Same thing happened with Fort Portal, and so now I've got separate seeds saved for each type. Interesting experiment, looking forward to hearing the outcomes. I've had a lot of bush varieties occasionally show some spunk and wondered if there is a cultural component (stress, shading). It's also possible it's genetic diversity traipsing through the garden on bees' knees. Like reed , I seem to have a fair bit of that goin' on in the garden.  I think that is common to beans of this complex. I've played around a lot with the Fort Portal Jade relatives (I'm the one who basically segregated Fort Portal Violet) and they seem to ALL do this "can't tell if I want to be bush, half runner or pole". Same thing is happening this year with my Mottled Grey's, mostly very early squatties that are done already, two full on poles that are only just started (with the reverse ones poles in the middle). Maybe it's something in the Ugandan genome. |
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Sept 1, 2017 12:08:30 GMT -5
andyb - that was actually the first thing I thought when I saw the bean, I was like "I swear I saw this is someone's avatar once" As for guessing the pollen donor, remember that white beans could have any seed coat pattern imaginable that just isn't being expressed because they don't produce any pigments. I didn't know this! This is exactly the kind of genetic info I'm looking for. So white in beans is kinda like how G (grey) works in horses, for example. Except that instead of 'writing over' the horse's original pattern over several years, the white beans are simply born 'white washed' but still technically colored/patterned as far as the other DNA is concerned. So instead of progressive depigmentation, it's more like instant depigmentation...? How does white work in terms of dominance? steev - I tried to quote you too, but it seems like I can only quote one person per post...? At least in the fancy way with pictures. So you get the un-fancy way, sorry xD This is exactly my thought process as well. Water is at such a premium here that anything able to make food without needing to be drowned constantly gets an A+ in my book. And I agree, I am willing to baby some things, especially first season to increase my seed stock or experiment with a rogue/F1 like the purple palm bean. No way it would be alive if I forced it to 'thrive or die,' as the original planting location got way too much sun for our hot summers. That checking the wallet thing killed me. I've definitely taken the 'record keeping' approach to a new extreme this year, but I only have like 1,250sqft or so of yard space, so things haven't gotten too out of hand yet. My philosophy has been more like "As long as I know who the plants are, I don't need to know who I am or what day of the week it is." Also working events for a living hasn't helped, because they rarely obey the M-F 9-5 work week. I woke up this morning excited thinking it was Tuesday because often that starts 'my' weekend, only to find out it's actually Friday and also labor day weekend 0_o But hey, I've memorized the entire family tree of my cucumber project, so there's that. blueadzuki Oh boy, now I've muddle up these quotes entirely... I grew up on forums and now I'm as useless and a one winged wombat. Send Halp. Anyway, back to beans -- I didn't know there was a Fort Portal Violet segregated strain (very cool), though I do think I remember seeing a seed company offer "Ugandan Bantu Beans" that looked like a spread of Fort Portal in multiple colors. I almost ordered those, but since I was already ordering from BC I just added the Fort Portal Jade instead. I have found the tendency to be definitely common in Portal beans, like you said, but I've also found that a lot of common beans will put out a random squattie (skipping the half runner stage) too. I have a Good Mother Stallard bean that I'm calling Mini Mom, because she's maybe a foot high, while the rest of the plants are 8'+ poles. She's not exactly thriving, so whether I'll have beans for the next generation is a big question mark. But it will be interesting to try the same type of experiment and see if those beans (like my couch forts) also produce only tiny offspring, or if that segregate into pole and squat. If the latter, then I think you may be on to something with the squat/HR/pole tendencies being especially prevalent in the Bantu bean genome.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 1, 2017 16:04:45 GMT -5
andyb - that was actually the first thing I thought when I saw the bean, I was like "I swear I saw this is someone's avatar once" As for guessing the pollen donor, remember that white beans could have any seed coat pattern imaginable that just isn't being expressed because they don't produce any pigments. I didn't know this! This is exactly the kind of genetic info I'm looking for. So white in beans is kinda like how G (grey) works in horses, for example. Except that instead of 'writing over' the horse's original pattern over several years, the white beans are simply born 'white washed' but still technically colored/patterned as far as the other DNA is concerned. So instead of progressive depigmentation, it's more like instant depigmentation...? How does white work in terms of dominance? White is usually a defective pigment gene - so it is recessive. Think of a two color printer (like, red and blue). Both tanks full (alleles), purple. One tank full, one empty (mutant white), either red or blue. Two tanks empty (double mutant), just a white page. Well if I wrote it in no color, you would have a hard time reading it!  |
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 1, 2017 18:10:50 GMT -5
blueadzuki Oh boy, now I've muddle up these quotes entirely... I grew up on forums and now I'm as useless and a one winged wombat. Send Halp. Anyway, back to beans -- I didn't know there was a Fort Portal Violet segregated strain (very cool), though I do think I remember seeing a seed company offer "Ugandan Bantu Beans" that looked like a spread of Fort Portal in multiple colors. I almost ordered those, but since I was already ordering from BC I just added the Fort Portal Jade instead. I have found the tendency to be definitely common in Portal beans, like you said, but I've also found that a lot of common beans will put out a random squattie (skipping the half runner stage) too. Ah I see where the confusion is. Fort Portal Violet is NOT closely related to Fort Portal Jade. Back when Ricter's Herbs (which was probably where you saw the Bantu beans" was the exclusive supplier, there was also a bean called Fort Portal Mixed. VERY different bean (it's kidney shaped, and has deep purple mottling on the cotyledons) THAT's the ancestor of FPV (when I grew it, all the beans came back purple(regardless of what color they were originally) and never seemed to do any other color so calling it mixed didn't seem to make sense to me anymore.) Ironically, there IS (or at least was) a purple seeded offshoot of Fort Portal Jade. When I got my original seed packets from Richer's there were two off colored seeds, one purple, one steel blue. I wrote to Ricter's (I was worried I had gotten a pack of Bantu by mistake) and they decided to re-do the packets and remove any non green seeds. I have no Idea what happened to the blue one, but I planted the pruple one with my Bantus the following year and it may have grown. Problem is, all of the Bantus came in that same shade of purple, so if it is there I have no way of knowing which seeds they are! |
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Sept 1, 2017 18:29:53 GMT -5
philagardener - Ok, hm... I feel like I understand this based on your metaphor... but then when I try to work it out in my head, more slowly, suddenly I'm lost again. So I'm going to make up some bean genes below just to fit the above example, so for anyone reading this please don't take the following as real genetics. If white is 'w', then a white bean is 'ww' (or are common beans polyploid?). What would WW be? Or is white simply any other pigment allele that got messed up, not a separate allele. Like a broken R (red). How would one write that, when describing the genetics of a white bean? Or is white simply the turning off of another allele. Which is different than a double recessive in genotype... but not phenotype? Also getting thrown because does this mean a Purple bean is created by a layering of red (R) and blue (B). So rrBB is Blue, RRbb is Red, and RRBB or RrBb is purple. Meaning there is no P, or purple gene, but rather just the combined effect of R and B. OR, is blue the recessive form of red say, like how in horses ( I know I know, so much horse talk, but it's how I first learned genetics so it's my fallback point of reference) there are only two base colors, black and chestnut, both governed by the E gene, so that EE and Ee are black, and ee is chestnut. So RR and Rr are red, while rr is blue? Which would mean that purple is a color modifier. Which makes white... also a color modifier? My apologies, I know I have this completely muddled up. I think I'm talking myself in a circle and missing the key point. I'm self taught, still very much learning, and value any insight you can give me. I keep trying to find explanations online, but most of these research articles require paid subscriptions or reference textbooks I cannot hope to afford. A while back I found this LINK for cucumbers, and though some of it goes over my head, the parts that don't are extremely helpful. I'm looking for something similar for beans, so I don't have to keep pestering you all with simple dna stuff xD
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Sept 1, 2017 18:39:00 GMT -5
blueadzuki Oh boy, now I've muddle up these quotes entirely... I grew up on forums and now I'm as useless and a one winged wombat. Send Halp. Anyway, back to beans -- I didn't know there was a Fort Portal Violet segregated strain (very cool), though I do think I remember seeing a seed company offer "Ugandan Bantu Beans" that looked like a spread of Fort Portal in multiple colors. I almost ordered those, but since I was already ordering from BC I just added the Fort Portal Jade instead. I have found the tendency to be definitely common in Portal beans, like you said, but I've also found that a lot of common beans will put out a random squattie (skipping the half runner stage) too. Ah I see where the confusion is. Fort Portal Violet is NOT closely related to Fort Portal Jade. Back when Ricter's Herbs (which was probably where you saw the Bantu beans" was the exclusive supplier, there was also a bean called Fort Portal Mixed. VERY different bean (it's kidney shaped, and has deep purple mottling on the cotyledons) THAT's the ancestor of FPV (when I grew it, all the beans came back purple(regardless of what color they were originally) and never seemed to do any other color so calling it mixed didn't seem to make sense to me anymore.) Ironically, there IS (or at least was) a purple seeded offshoot of Fort Portal Jade. When I got my original seed packets from Richer's there were two off colored seeds, one purple, one steel blue. I wrote to Ricter's (I was worried I had gotten a pack of Bantu by mistake) and they decided to re-do the packets and remove any non green seeds. I have no Idea what happened to the blue one, but I planted the pruple one with my Bantus the following year and it may have grown. Problem is, all of the Bantus came in that same shade of purple, so if it is there I have no way of knowing which seeds they are! Oh wow, apparently I'm confused on all fronts today! Ok, so Fort Portal Jade is likely derived from the Ugandan Bantu bean, while Fort Portal Violet came from the Fort Portal mixed. Got it, my mistake. Yea the FPJ i have are not kidney shaped at all, and I've seen no mottling at all, cotyledons or elsewhere. I did a quick power search, and found this offering at Salt Spring Seeds for the Bantu beans. I believe this is the same one I saw before, though as you say it might actually have been Richters where I saw it. www.saltspringseeds.com/products/ugandan-bantu-beansThe green beans in the photos definitely look like the Fort Portal Jade offered by Baker Creek. I've already done one round of planting and did not get any off type colors, so unsure if that means the green color is dominant or if BC has just spend several generations stabilizing that specific color. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 1, 2017 20:59:03 GMT -5
philagardener - Ok, hm... I feel like I understand this based on your metaphor... but then when I try to work it out in my head, more slowly, suddenly I'm lost again. So I'm going to make up some bean genes below just to fit the above example, so for anyone reading this please don't take the following as real genetics. If white is 'w', then a white bean is 'ww' (or are common beans polyploid?). What would WW be? Or is white simply any other pigment allele that got messed up, not a separate allele. Like a broken R (red). How would one write that, when describing the genetics of a white bean? Or is white simply the turning off of another allele. Which is different than a double recessive in genotype... but not phenotype? Also getting thrown because does this mean a Purple bean is created by a layering of red (R) and blue (B). So rrBB is Blue, RRbb is Red, and RRBB or RrBb is purple. Meaning there is no P, or purple gene, but rather just the combined effect of R and B. OR, is blue the recessive form of red say, like how in horses ( I know I know, so much horse talk, but it's how I first learned genetics so it's my fallback point of reference) there are only two base colors, black and chestnut, both governed by the E gene, so that EE and Ee are black, and ee is chestnut. So RR and Rr are red, while rr is blue? Which would mean that purple is a color modifier. Which makes white... also a color modifier? My apologies, I know I have this completely muddled up. I think I'm talking myself in a circle and missing the key point. I'm self taught, still very much learning, and value any insight you can give me. I keep trying to find explanations online, but most of these research articles require paid subscriptions or reference textbooks I cannot hope to afford. A while back I found this LINK for cucumbers, and though some of it goes over my head, the parts that don't are extremely helpful. I'm looking for something similar for beans, so I don't have to keep pestering you all with simple dna stuff xD Again going from my experience it works out like this. purple over pale green/cream = blue, purple over red = black. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Sept 1, 2017 21:10:18 GMT -5
Ah I see where the confusion is. Fort Portal Violet is NOT closely related to Fort Portal Jade. Back when Ricter's Herbs (which was probably where you saw the Bantu beans" was the exclusive supplier, there was also a bean called Fort Portal Mixed. VERY different bean (it's kidney shaped, and has deep purple mottling on the cotyledons) THAT's the ancestor of FPV (when I grew it, all the beans came back purple(regardless of what color they were originally) and never seemed to do any other color so calling it mixed didn't seem to make sense to me anymore.) Ironically, there IS (or at least was) a purple seeded offshoot of Fort Portal Jade. When I got my original seed packets from Richer's there were two off colored seeds, one purple, one steel blue. I wrote to Ricter's (I was worried I had gotten a pack of Bantu by mistake) and they decided to re-do the packets and remove any non green seeds. I have no Idea what happened to the blue one, but I planted the pruple one with my Bantus the following year and it may have grown. Problem is, all of the Bantus came in that same shade of purple, so if it is there I have no way of knowing which seeds they are! Oh wow, apparently I'm confused on all fronts today! Ok, so Fort Portal Jade is likely derived from the Ugandan Bantu bean, while Fort Portal Violet came from the Fort Portal mixed. Got it, my mistake. Yea the FPJ i have are not kidney shaped at all, and I've seen no mottling at all, cotyledons or elsewhere. I did a quick power search, and found this offering at Salt Spring Seeds for the Bantu beans. I believe this is the same one I saw before, though as you say it might actually have been Richters where I saw it. www.saltspringseeds.com/products/ugandan-bantu-beansThe green beans in the photos definitely look like the Fort Portal Jade offered by Baker Creek. I've already done one round of planting and did not get any off type colors, so unsure if that means the green color is dominant or if BC has just spend several generations stabilizing that specific color. If someone did that, it would be the Bantu farmers themselves, not Baker Creek. Remember, Fort Portal Jade existed as a separate bean back in the Richter's days long before baker creek got a hold of it. So I have to assume that it was already it's own variety, unless Joe Simcox made it by picking green seeds out of the Bantu he collected (though in that case, one would expect there to be NO off colors) And then we get to the Mottled Grey I'm working with, which is a headache of a whole second order. It's sort of the reverse of the Fort Portal Mixed situation. That appeared to be a mixed bean that proved to in fact be homogeneous or nearly so (I say "or nearly" as there is also Fort Portal Violet Supreme, a slightly bigger version) Mottled grey, on the other hand was offered as a variable single variety that is actually a mix, with each color coming true to itself. It's made up of a solid purple/blue bean (more or less the same as Fort Portal Violet) a couple of white beans with purple speckles (resembling an African bean called Pebblestone) a small number of large kidney shaped blue/purple beans with a small number of white streaks (which I have named Night Sky) and a tiny number of small tan and red beans which are obvious contamination (they don't even have the same flower color as the others). They're not great beans for most purposes (most are REALLY long season, to the point where you almost need summer weather through November to get any seed back) but it is interesting to play around (maybe next time, I'll get a bunch of the Malagasy beans from Richter's and see if there is anything in them besides white.) |
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andyb
gardener
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Post by andyb on Sept 2, 2017 0:42:22 GMT -5
The dominant pigmentation gene we're talking about acts a switch that turns on for a whole bunch of other traits involving color in the plant. If your plant has at least one good gene, it can produce a whole set of different colors of pigments. If it has two of the broken (recessive) genes, none of those color traits get expressed, or rather they get expressed in white on a white background.
My understanding of what's going on in practice is that the whole set of anthocyanin pigments depend on one or a few common genes that are necessary early on in their biosynthetic pathways. Think of a precursor chemical generated by a gene that then gets modified by another gene and so on. At some point a pair of different genes can act on the same intermediate chemical to make either an orangish pigment or a purple pigment, so there's a fork in the pathway. If one of those early genes gets a mutation and stops working, all of the downstream pathways don't have anything to work with. If you don't have any flour in your pantry, it's going to be hard to make bread or pancakes or biscuits or muffins, even if you have all the other ingredients and a perfectly good oven.
One neat thing you can do is to use the dominant gene as a marker to tell if a cross was successful, assuming you use a variety with two recessive genes as your seed parent. That way you can be sloppy in your crosses and do fertile x fertile crosses without bothering to emasculate or you can just let the bees cross things up. When you grow the seeds out you can keep any plants that have pink or purple flowers or that have a purple blush to the stem or whatever, knowing that they must have been the result of the cross you wanted. You can often see a purple or red blush on the stems or cotyledons in the seedling stage, so you might be able to cull the selfed plants really early on. I'm pretty sure Carol Deppe mentions this technique in her first book.
There are pigments that aren't anthocyanins, such as carotenes, so this isn't the whole picture, but it's a good bit of it.
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Sept 2, 2017 15:01:55 GMT -5
Ooooooooo... ok. So (making up genes again) it's less like a W (white gene) and more like a C (make color) gene. As long as there is a copy, either homozygous or heterozygous, pigments can still be produced? Kind of like how women are less likely to be color blind because the most common genetic reasons are linked to the X chromosome, and since women have two they have a backup. Whereas men only have one, so if it's broken, no color. So, say we call this the C (color) gene, it would look something like --  Forgive the terrible Microsoft Paint image; I never claimed to be an artist xD One neat thing you can do is to use the dominant gene as a marker to tell if a cross was successful, assuming you use a variety with two recessive genes as your seed parent. That way you can be sloppy in your crosses and do fertile x fertile crosses without bothering to emasculate or you can just let the bees cross things up. When you grow the seeds out you can keep any plants that have pink or purple flowers or that have a purple blush to the stem or whatever, knowing that they must have been the result of the cross you wanted. You can often see a purple or red blush on the stems or cotyledons in the seedling stage, so you might be able to cull the selfed plants really early on. I'm pretty sure Carol Deppe mentions this technique in her first book. There are pigments that aren't anthocyanins, such as carotenes, so this isn't the whole picture, but it's a good bit of it. I did that with one of my cucumber crosses actually! Great advice; it's really a brilliant method. Effective, and simple. I ended up crossing Dar (green skin, white spines) with Miniature White (White skin, black spines). I let the bees do their thing, and took seeds from the Miniature White. The green baby fruit made it clear the cross was successful (along with the black spines). |
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Post by philagardener on Sept 2, 2017 15:57:07 GMT -5
At a basic level, Day , you've got it. As others have pointed out, it can be complicated quickly! And sometimes, even with all we know, the plants still surprise us! |
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Post by reed on Sept 2, 2017 16:52:07 GMT -5
My gene tracking is much more simple. Did it grow good? G. Did we like it? L. D + L = grow it again. |
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