with beans and peas do viruses get into the seeds?

[flowerbug]

i've not read up enough on this sort of topic to know. 

when a plant is infected from an aphid or some other vector does it make it into the seeds the plant produces?

[flowerbug]

thanks! that sounds interesting. have you ever done it? i don't have any kind of lab equipment here so i have to go from visual inspection and hope for the best. i also don't have a lot of aphid problems here.

[flowerbug]

very interesting, thank you! way back in the dark ages i've had a few biology classes and a botany class so i'm not completely lost when speaking of technical or biological terms, but i'm not completely up on some of the finer language/terminology when describing plants or traits. however, i've always been interested in science and nature and reading popular articles/texts so that i still find it facinating when something comes by. most of my more recent readings have been more microbiology and soil sciences instead of plant breeding or physiology. once in a while i try to read a paper on bean genetics or studies but a lot of the terminology and technology they're referencing is not known to me as of yet. i still find them interesting...

[billw]

I'm far from an expert on beans or their viruses, but there are definitely viruses that infect bean seeds. Probably the most well known is Bean Common Mosaic Virus, which can infect 80% or more of the seeds of infected plants and also can transmit through pollen. Meristem tip culture and electrotherapy are two techniques that can cure this virus. That said, for plants that grow true from seed and have a seed infection rate of less than 100%, the most cost effective route would generally be to grow 100 seeds and then test all of the seedlings for the virus by ELISA. You would then just keep the ones that test negative and propagate a clean crop. That route has the virtue of not requiring a TC lab and skills, which is a fairly substantial investment of time and money.

[flowerbug]

Jan 20, 2020 10:23:05 GMT -5 William said:

I think there are some other methods of disinfestation such as heating seeds.

i've not heard of this before so it is good to know there is another potential method if i ever need it.

[flowerbug]

oh, ok!

[reed]

I don't worry about it too much. I just cull any that are badly diseased and more important I think when time to choose seeds to save I favor those that came from more healthy plants. I especially like to save from dry pods that have few or no blemishes. I also inspect individual seeds and if I have the option, only keep those with perfect seed coats. No dimples or discolored spots.

I have a strain of KY Wonder beans that get little to no disease symptoms at all, even when others near by do. I just saved the nicer ones over a period of twenty years or so. They still taste like KY Wonder but the pods are longer and straighter, the seeds are larger, flatter and lighter colored than ones I'v seen recently.

I'v never bothered to accurately identify the disease(s) that may be in my garden. I don't see the point of eliminating it cause I don't believe it would be permanent. Sooner or later I would bring in some seed from outside or the wind would blow and it would come back. Strains that just shrug it off and grow anyway are what I hope for.

[flowerbug]

well i'm with you for sure there reed as i don't want to grow things that are heavily dependent upon being babied to be productive. i have a tough enough time finding beans that like our soils and climate.

it is very rare for me to have blemish free pods. not much fence space here. we get a lot of dew fall and fogs here as our local microclimate is in a low spot. then if we get later summer rains that presents even more challenges. for the best seed quality i get i leave the pods on the plants as long as i can, but if it looks like rain i'll try to bring in whatever is close to being ready to finish drying. i keep stacks of box tops for this. as i like to select for early varieties too i keep my early finishing beans apart from the rest to use as first selections for further replanting.

the beans that always have rot problems i don't usually regrow unless it has some other trait i'm trying to pick up in my crosses.

[reed]

It's near impossible for me to get decent looking seed from bush beans sometimes even to get a decent harvest. Seem to me one storm with some hard rain and wind and ya end up harvesting as much mud by weight as beans. Then if it happens to do that while they are drying, forget it. That's why I've switched almost exclusively to pole beans, plus poles are more productive too, I think. It is a pain to build all that trellis each year but worth it for the nice clean healthy beans. As far as non blemished pods, just keep at it. It isn't just a variety v variety thing although that's definitely part of it but individual plants of the same variety can vary too.

My new bean breading program is with the short climbers that Russ calls semi-runners. Refugee is a spectacular bean I think but one variety last year was so ate up by disease I barely got my return harvest.

[flowerbug]

sometimes i'm surprised here. i'll look at the outside of a pod and think there's no way the seeds in there are going to be any good, yet sometimes they are just fine. i keep an eye out for those which look the best, but even those that don't look so good on the outside as long as they protect the bean on the inside well enough those are ok too.

the past season i grew a few beans that were the opposite, if they had beans in the pods that were close to being ready the pods weren't very good at protecting the beans. i'm not looking to grow these regularly other than one of them has an early habit i wouldn't mind crossing to other beans. just not sure if it will be worth if if those beans have the same issues as this parent. a lot of the seeds got rather icky too quickly. anyways, we'll see how it goes.