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Post by macmex on Nov 29, 2017 13:42:11 GMT -6
Hey folks,
Life has been kind of hectic lately. I want to start a thread on saving bean seed. It's going to have to be done bit by bit, as my free time is kind of limited right now.
The first thing I'd mention is that beans are among the easiest seeds to save, as they are large and the plants are generally prolific. Beans are among the most fun to harvest and collect, as the seeds are often unique and colorful. They're beautiful! I did say "collect." Beware! the "collecting bug" can get you and make you become hopelessly addicted!
Having mentioned collecting, I should address one of the requirements for saving pure seed. If you want to reproduce pure seed, seed which will grow and reproduce the same as what you planted, from generation to generation, then it's necessary to give your plantings some isolation from other plantings of beans.
How much isolation distance do beans need to avoid cross pollination? Well, that depends on several factors. 1) The number of native bees (not honey bees) living in your environment will affect isolation distance requirements. In 2017, for instance, I spotted solitary bees (natives) working bean bean flowers. These little insects can carry pollen from one bean variety to another. So, whereas I might only give my beans a 15' isolation distance, under normal conditions, I'm probably going to double that, at least.
2) Drought contributes to cross pollination issues. In extreme drought, bean flowers seem to open wider, allowing pollinators easier access. So, in case of drought, use more isolation.
3) The size and shape of the planting of a given bean variety affects cross pollination. Pollinators tend to go down rows. So, if you plant your bean varieties side by side in rows, there's a higher probability of crossing. Planting blocks of beans, and taking seed from plants on the inside of the planting, really helps to maintain purity.
4) Barrier crops can help prevent cross pollination. Anything tall and bushy, planting between your bean varieties, can help to prevent cross pollination. I like to plant a tall corn around the garden, tucking bean varieties into the "jungle." I believe this helps to prevent cross pollination.
Keep in mind that a cross may not show until the crossed seed is grown out. It's possible to have a bean of one color cross with a bean of another color, for instance, and the crossed seed won't show any sign of crossing. Yet, when grown out, there will suddenly appear beans with different size, color and shaped seed.
Here's a link to An Experiment with Bean Crosses which details some observations gleaned from growing out crossed seed.
Okay, that's it for now. Any comments are welcome. Share your experiences with us!
George
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Post by macmex on Oct 11, 2018 6:24:08 GMT -6
Well, obviously I didn't get back to this thread when I thought I would. Yesterday I did a blog post on what to do if your saved bean seed gets crossed. I can't just copy it over here, as this website wouldn't handle the graphics and formatting we use on Homesteading Edu. Here's a link though. Some of the points I made in the blog are the same, plus some additional thoughts. I'm also going to do a post on preventing crosses and one on stabilizing crosses.
What to do with bean crosses
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Post by aftermidnight on Oct 12, 2018 10:33:04 GMT -6
George, I'm still hanging in with Ralph's Italian, weather hasn't turned yet and a few pods are starting to get leathery. This is definitely a yellow podded bean and you say it should be a green podded bean. As you know this was the very last bean in the packet of Ralph's Italian Heirloom I bought from Victory Seeds, the seed coat pattern and color was the same as in the rest of the packet so, if when shelled the seed coat is different or white like many wax beans we know they have a cross in their seed. If it is a different variety I don't think the seed coats would be identical to the others in the packet. Although it looks to be a great bean after all this I will be disappointed.
Annette
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Post by aftermidnight on Oct 12, 2018 11:13:52 GMT -6
...OR... could it be a mutation, in all the years I've grown beans this has only happen once before in my garden.
Annette
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Post by macmex on Oct 13, 2018 12:27:28 GMT -6
I have had such things more often than I would like. Most of the time it's actually a cross. If grown out for another season the F2 generation differentiates into quite a few variations, including some which resemble the original. I had one off type plant crop up from Barksdale seed I received from Sandhill Preservation Center. The pods don't go over 5" long. They start out flat, like Barksdale, yet pale green When the seed fills out it is white cutshort and the pods resemble creaseback greasy beans, except they are not greasy. They have the usual fuzz of normal beans. Anyway, is this a cross? Maybe. It's also possible that a stray seed from another variety got dropped into the seed bin, somehow, somewhere along the line. I'm saving seed, but I'm not sure when I will grow it out.
With all the crossing we have here, I am acutely aware of my limitations in growing out numbers of varieties. I have to give much better isolation than most other gardeners I know.
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Post by aftermidnight on Oct 13, 2018 14:39:13 GMT -6
Only time will tell George, I have seed for the white seeded Cherokee Trail of Tears a mutation of the black seeded variety, this mutation is pretty stable although the fellow I got my seed from had after several years have one pod that reverted back to black seed.
Annette
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Post by macmex on Jul 17, 2020 12:05:11 GMT -6
I kind of left this thread without doing it justice, forgetting to come back and finish. To "save" bean seed one also needs to store it. Many times bean seed will come on from the field with weevil eggs hidden under the skin. This makes no difference at all if you're going to cook and eat the beans right away, but if you store the seed for some months it's likely to be their ruin. The weevils (little bugs) hatch out and bore holes through the seed, ruining it. So, if you want to save seed for next year be sure to:
- Dry it very well. After shelling the beans from their dry pods I spread them on a tray and let them sit for weeks in a dry, cool (at least not hot) place. Then...
- I bag or bottle the seed in an airtight container and place it into the freezer for at least two days. This kills weevil eggs. Just remember, when removing frozen seed from the freezer let it warm to room temperature before opening the container. If you don't, condensation can ruin it.
- Store this seed in a cool dry place until you need it. If you simply leave it in the freezer, it'll probably be viable for decades. If kept in a cool, dry place at room temperature, it should be okay for at least four years. If kept in a cool, dry, dark place, it might be good a bit longer. Even light shortens seed life.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 11, 2021 13:29:10 GMT -6
I wanted to bring this older thread back to the top as one of my primary seed saving goals this year is to collect seed for Rattlesnake pole beans. Because my garden is small I made a point of planting only that one variety this season. That should take care of the isolation issue I hope.
My beans are starting to produce, and we’ve probably been able to harvest about three pounds from a twenty foot row so far. Our family of six is probably perfectly capable of consuming all of the beans fresh, so I know I need to be conscientious about not doing that. My thought was that I should set aside some good strong vines for seed saving and make a point of letting those beans mature and dry during the summer’s heat. Is now an appropriate time to start that, or am I safe to harvest for a while yet and then set aside vines later for seed saving?
I guess what I’m asking is how to maximize my harvests without jeopardizing my goal of saving seeds. I’m opening to advice or links to other material where I can read. I’d appreciate any help from those more experienced in this field than I.
Thank you.
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Post by macmex on Jun 12, 2021 5:21:40 GMT -6
I use a couple of strategies for saving seed from beans that I also intend to use for eating. One strategy is to plant on poles or separate trellises and designate some for seed and some for eating. I often use poles and, to make things more simply I do some tepees and some straight up, single poles. The singles are for eating and the tepees are for seed. Of course, this is arbitrary. One could designate whatever they want for eating or for seed.
In recent years, for somewhat smaller seed samples, I've experimented with leaving a few pods, here and there, on a trellis, and then picking the rest. With a lot of varieties, I've found that no matter how I should try to pick all the pods, some still hide and "escape." The advantage of this method is that I get a much broader base of plants for my seed collection. The disadvantage is that bean vines aren't static while producing. I'm convinced they not only grow shoots, but may even move around a bit while growing. All this means that it may be difficult to remember which pods are supposed to remain and mature and which are supposed to be harvested.
A hybrid between methods is to designate a trellis or, more often, a tepee, for seed and then, at the very end of the season, while cleaning up, I glean seeds from the areas which were designated for food production, adding that seed to the other.
I've found that a pole, with three or four plants, will produce about a pint of dry seed, with most varieties. A tripod generally gives me nearly a quart. This does vary with variety and conditions.
Isolation can be distance, and may be helped by planting barrier crops and/or planting the beans in blocks, instead of rows. I suspect that planting cowpeas near the beans my help cut down on crosses, as they cowpeas produce prodigious amounts of nectar, drawing some of the same pollinators, yet they do not cross with phaseolus vulgaris.
I've started keeping the greater part of my seeds in frozen storage. To make things fit in the upper freezer compartment of the fridge where I do this, I've stopped using jars and started storing seed in plastic bags of various sizes, grouping them inside plastic boxes or trays, according to type of seed.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 13, 2021 14:18:01 GMT -6
I'm not more experienced, but experienced at failing. Last year my garden bed had that hardpan. The vines grew beautifully on the trellis and put out pods, but they were stressed and succumbed to the bugs and heat before I could save. Except for yard long beans. I think those would survive a nuke holocaust. I wish I would have saved the first couple of pods of the others for seed. Bon, that is more experienced than I am, even if it wasn’t the happiest experience for you. I appreciate your sharing because it was a good warning to me. I’ve had my share of garden failures. Sometimes the reason is apparent; sometimes it’s mystifying. My garlic, for instance, just did not come up this year at all, despite my best efforts to secure a good variety for this area grown out by a local farmer and vernalized for weeks in my refrigerator following detailed instructions I had read to help make garlic successful this far south. Complete failure! I’ve decided to start growing out my bean seeds for saving now because of your post. Thank you.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 13, 2021 14:18:30 GMT -6
macmex, my entire row of beans is on one twenty-foot-long utility panel. (We had two of those on our property when we moved in. The previous owners must have used them to block off a particularly rocky area of the property to keep their horses out. We didn’t need them where they were, and it was a lot of work to unfasten them and carry them up hill, but they are wonderful trellises!). I decided to designate some good looking vines near one of the supporting t-posts as my saving vines. I’m usually the only one who harvests, but I had to warn my husband and youngest son not to pick those particular beans as they see them getting larger in the coming days. My five year old loves to snack on beans when he’s with me in the garden. I just hope that I don’t forget myself!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 13, 2021 21:42:47 GMT -6
That story of your 5-year-old reminds me of my oldest son's garden adventures as a child. I don't remember how old he was at the time, but I do remember him pulling all of my pepper plants, thinking they were weeds. He came running up to me with a handful of pepper plants, very happy that he had helped me while I was out there pulling weeds myself. I couldn't be mad at him for doing that because I remembered a time when as a child, I had picked all of Mom's green tomatoes, thinking I was helping her in the tiny garden she had in our backyard, while we were living in Tulsa one summer. I'm sure she was very disappointed, but she never showed it. She just let me know not to pick the green ones anymore. Moms are a great thing to have in situations like that.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 28, 2021 21:13:32 GMT -6
I just thought I’d post a picture of some of the bean pods on my Rattlesnake vines that I dedicated to saving. I noticed that some are starting to dry. I think they’re extra pretty that way.
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Post by macmex on Jun 30, 2021 10:33:21 GMT -6
Bet you'll have time to dry and replant for a fall crop! That is such a good bean.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jul 1, 2021 15:17:50 GMT -6
I’m in the process of trying to figure out my fall garden. The problem is that in order to plant a new fall crop I have to pull the older spring ones out, and I have such a hard time doing that! Sometimes it’s easy when the cucumbers are just played out or the squash vine borers have killed off the zucchini (both of those are happening now), but indeterminate tomatoes are my weakness, and this year my garden has lots of them. I might be able to do another bean crop on the current cucumber trellis, though my kids might appreciate some sugar snap peas. I only have so much room!
I’m also trying to figure out whether to try for more fresh harvest on the Rattlesnake beans, or whether I should just let them all mature and dry down at this point. For a while I was getting a pound every two days, but when the rain stopped and the heat hit, things slowed down a bunch, to the point that I don’t even get a pound in a week. I water, but it’s just not nearly so good as rain. We did get some rain (about 3/4 of an inch) this week and a bit of a reprieve from the heat, so I’ll see if that improves things for a bit. The current July forecast starts out below normal for temperature for here.
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