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Post by glen on Oct 13, 2017 16:37:59 GMT -6
That has to be the answer. I instinctively sprayed the soil with pesticide yesterday around all the plants but did not know what it could be doing this damage. I sprayed the soil again. Digging around the plants did not expose any cutworms. But, what else could it be? Blind hens? The next question is definitly beyond my paygrade. Why are all the blooms on the one plant that is blooming just turning brownish and falling off with out setting fruit?
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Post by macmex on Oct 14, 2017 6:31:50 GMT -6
When bean flowers abort, my experience is that they are stressed with heat or lack of humidity, or both. I've grown varieties which come from a cooler, moister environment, which will flower and drop their flowers for weeks or months, until cooler night time temperatures arrive. Then, they set on a lot of pods all at once. The trick is to keep them alive and healthy until those conditions arrive.
Oaxaca Cream comes from a mountainous area in the Mexican State of Oaxaca. I'm not sure how hot it can get there. But when I've been there, it was just warm during the day and cooler at night. When it flowered and set seed for me it was in the fall, when nights were cool and days were not overly hot.
I've heard that, when this is the case, one can spray the vines with a mist of water, in the evening, and, if conditions are borderline, they may set seed.
George
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Post by glen on Oct 14, 2017 14:21:48 GMT -6
Ok, the next question is how the seeds perform while Merry was growing the seed in Hawaii. Conditions vary most likely in Hawaii also. I don't know anything about Hawaii but I do know something about retiree's. They don't like harshness in the climate. They prefer living in cool climates especially cooler night time temperatures where it is easier to sleep. I bet Merry lives some place like that. I live in harsh conditions. Conditions that prohibit many Gringo's from moving here and living near me. Its hot during the day. And, it does not cool down that much during the evenings either. We have high humidity also. Its so hot where I live that its difficult for tomato's to ripen red. They ripen pink. Tomato's cannot set fruit here. Blooms fall off due to extreme temps during the day and night. I can only grow cherry tomato's. Italion tomato's can grow here but I get a small harvest of pink, not red fruits. Many if not most of the blooms fall off the plant. Even cherry tomato's have a smaller harvest than normal. Have you ever heard the expression, "hot as Africa!". Well, my climate is harsher than most places in Africa. I thought Ghana was hot. I have been there. A little research and I found out that where I live is hotter and more humid than where Afrane lives in Kumasi, Ghana. I think this explains why my vines are dropping the blooms. I need to most likely find a different variety. To tell you the truth, I am now set on growing a "greasy" bean. The question now becomes, where would I find a "greasy" pole bean that can adapt to my extremely harsh conditions? My conditions stay on the harsh side for the entire year also. I live near the equator.
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Post by glen on Oct 14, 2017 14:26:42 GMT -6
This morning I did my normal walk thru and noticed some blossom drop on the blooming plant of which there is only one right now. I also noticed a few more pods forming which is good news. I think there is at least 2 more tiny pods. I also noticed a little more vine damage on a different plant so that cut worm is still doing his dirty business. I will keep this vine going as long as I can and see if I can coax some seed out of it.
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Post by glen on Oct 18, 2017 10:39:04 GMT -6
Today I noticed that several beans are getting larger. Very slow. Only a few beans are forming although there are many blue blossoms. Conditions are not ideal for this vine for making pods. A different vine is also showing nice blue blooms. No pods forming. Low yield right now. I know so little about beans that all I can do is keep the vines alive and hope for the best. Low low yield right now. My next question is this. If the blooms all just wither away without producing will I get other blossom sets in the future? Low yield is a huge problem. If the vines are unable to produce beans they will have no future in my garden. No matter how pretty they are.
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Post by glen on Oct 20, 2017 8:51:19 GMT -6
Right now there are 5 pods forming on one plant. The largest pod appears to be forming seeds now. There will be 2 or 3 seeds. Pods is about 2 and 1-2 inches long. The pods that I can see are scattered about on the vine, no more than one on a branch. There is another vine that has been in bloom for several days but no pods have been started. Blooms appear to just wither and drop off.
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Post by glen on Oct 22, 2017 11:02:39 GMT -6
George, the vines don't look stressed. Growing nicely. Just not enough pods being formed. I don't believe that things are going to change because my conditions here are pretty stable. These vines need something to change before they can start forming pods. There are plenty of blossoms and you can see that in the right conditions this variety could be covered over. I am only sticking with this project because the vines are rare. My plan right now is to save what seed I can salvage. I have put the remaining seed that you had sent to me back in the freezer. Once these vines provide all the seed they can produce I will send all the seed to you. This variety does not perform well in my harsh conditions.
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Post by glen on Oct 26, 2017 11:07:55 GMT -6
Today I can see cut worm damage on a few vines. All four pots have vines that are in Bloom. I mean the vines are covered over in blooms. They just don't form pods. All blooms wither and fall. On all vines now. Weather has been very humid lately with a lot of rain and over-cast. There are 5 beans with obvious sedes developing in them that have been there for a couple of weeks. This is good because it appears that at least a few sedes will be produced. The other vines should eventually form a few pods. If I can get 4 or 5 pods from each vine there could be 20 or so pods eventually which means at least 50 sedes to collect at the end of this trial. The whole purpose of this trial now is to try and collect sedes. As far as George and I know right now, this seed is rare. I plan to do my best and get as many sedes as I can. I will most likely not grow this variety again though. The sedes need to be in someone's hands that knows what they are doing. That would not be me.
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Post by glen on Oct 29, 2017 17:03:44 GMT -6
Today I noticed 3 tiny pods started on different vines. This means there are probably more that I didn't see so this is a good sign. I mean, at least a good sign for saving a few sedes. I am on course to be able to save at least 50 sedes I think. I just need to be patient and take as good of care of the vines as posible so a few pods have a chance to form and produce seed. This is the first time I have ever grown pole beans knowing I am not going to have any string beans for the kitchen! However, it will be a good thing if I can produce at least 50 sedes. Maybe I will get lucky and produce more. Each pod so far is only producing 2 or 3 seeds. So I need quite a few more pods to reach my goal. At least 20 pods in total would be a good number. Thats not a good yield at all but since this vine does not want to set fruit I need to be thankful if I can get that many and save decent, viable seed. I am seeking 20 pods from 10 vines! I don't think this is asking for that much. Do you?
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Post by macmex on Oct 30, 2017 4:40:49 GMT -6
That is disappointing. However, getting enough seed to start over is still a good thing. Tarahumara Pink Green Bean was going great guns here. But we had an unusually early hard freeze. I may have lost all seed for this year, which is not at all good. I probably have only about 20 seed left, and that from frozen seed shared with me by Native Seeds Search. I planted this variety at the point farthest from a source of electricity, of any garden spot I have. So I couldn't run a lot of current out there, due to line loss. I almost couldn't cobble together enough extension cords to light a 60 watt light bulb. Anyway, I may have zero seed this year. Yesterday I took down the tent and examined things. I did find a couple pods, closest to the light, which seemed not to have frozen. But they were about 2 weeks from having fully mature seed. There's a chance I may get seed from those few pods. We'll see. If I do, it won't be nice plump seed. I'll have to grow it out in 2018, or it will expire.
Here's what it looked like inside the tent.
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Post by glen on Oct 30, 2017 14:03:38 GMT -6
George, I was absolutely sure you were going to have a bumper crop of seed. That is a complete bummer story. I hope you at least have enough to try again. I had my heart set on getting a few of those sedes also. What a shame. At any rate, whatever few sedes I do glean from my crop will be sent to you. No sense in me trying it again. This is my second try and the results have not changed. I do have about 25 sedes in the freezer. I should have more coming from the garden. I am not sure what you are going to do with it? It doesn't grow well in OK either? I am on the lookout now for a new bean variety. If I am unable to locate one I will be planting the long bean again. What other option do I have? From my Reading, pole beans are harder to grow in the tropics than they are in the US. The área I keep seeing mentioned is the Appalachian mountain área of North Carolina and Tennessee as being the ideal place for growing old fashioned greasy pole beans. The people here where I live love beans but there are only a few select species that they grow and eat. I may have to look into those species and most of those are grown for the seed, not for the pod. At my house, we have been eating a lot of beans using the slow cooker starting the night before to cook the beans off. How beans are prepared makes all the difference in the world I am finding out. In the US I never ate much legumes. Here in Panama it is necessary to eat them because there are less options. So, I am making the best of it. It is incredibly expensive here to eat the same way I used to eat back home. Or, maybe I have been living outside of the US so long that I am getting behind on the actual cost of living? I bet that is it. It would probably take my breath away if I visited the US and went food shopping now-a-days based on my tiny Budget I am forced to live on now.
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Post by macmex on Oct 31, 2017 4:42:07 GMT -6
Glen, let me do some investigating on snap beans for the tropics. It's hard to predict who a variety will do in your environment without knowing that it has done well in a similar environment before. You might check out Native Seed Search just because I know that there seed generally comes from a bit further South than the Appalachians. Some Appalachian seed may do alright for you. I don't know.
I can grow Oaxaca Cream here. But I have to grow it in a container and bring it in at the end of the season, so it can mature fruit. I'd do that and continue looking for someone in an appropriate environment to use and grow it.
I am hoping that some of the Tarahumara Pink Green Bean pods will yet produces some seed.. I will try again, next year. I've grown it about 5 or 6 times over a 20 year period, and this is the first time it didn't make seed for me.
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Post by glen on Nov 1, 2017 12:13:01 GMT -6
George, what I need is an all around bean that can be used as a dried bean and as a Green bean. The long bean is pretty good. The only down side is that the bean seed is small. It is a small red bean but there are about 8 or 9 in a pod which is not bad. The pods are long and tender and can be eaten at any stage of growth but are best when the seed is not formed in the pod. The good part is that this bean is very productive. It puts on tons of beans. The bad part is that this bean attracts all kinds of bugs and also virus. But, that is probably a problema with most variety's grown in my environment. The long bean is also long lived here and the vines get very thick, thicker than a pencil when the vines get a Little age to them. I think this bean came out of a bag of beans from the grocery store but I will never know, since I got the sedes off of someones fence. I want to try growing other good variety's if I can find them but like you say, its going to take some investigating. I hate to try beans from the grocery store but I might have to do that. We have quite a few different colors of beans in the store that are grown in nearby provinces but I do not know if they are pole beans or bush beans.
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Post by glen on Nov 1, 2017 12:16:33 GMT -6
I might be able to grow that tarahumara variety here but it would be a crap shoot like every other new variety I try. You are right about the oahacan creme variety. It takes a long time for the vines to produce mature pods. If the vines would only set fruit for me that would not be a problema. I am not sure what the vines are looking for as far as fruit set. I am guessing different temperaturas?
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Post by glen on Nov 4, 2017 14:15:45 GMT -6
The oahacan creme bean does not make many seeds in the pods. They have anywhere from 2, to 4 seeds with 3 seeming to be the average at this early stage of the game. The pods turn very purple. I only have 5 pods showing seeds. There are about 10 now that are small and not showing seeds. You have to look very hard to find them. There are so many blooms but so few pods. It appears that if I have patience I will have a nice little stash of seed from this trial. I am still experiencing some issues with cutworms. Its manageable though. The vines are not vuluptuous leaf producers nor are they vigorous like the tarahumara vines George trialed. The pods form extremely slowly. Slower than I have ever seen in a pole bean. I cannot predict how many seeds will be produced but it will not be many. If I get 50 seeds in total from this trial I would be happy. Its possible that I can see more.
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