Tennessee Cutshort Pole bean

[jenna2011]

Hi I’m new here. I’ve spent the last 10 years looking for Tennessee Cutshort pole beans. I ended up having a multitude of surgeries and was not able to plant. By the time I was able to my seed ended up not being viable. I can’t find any comparison. Is there anyone out there who can help?
Thanks! Michele

[raf]

I don't have them but Sandhill Preservation Center does, they're listed under the "snap beans" header towards the bottom of the page are all the cut shorts.

[raf]

I don't have them but Sandhill Preservation Center does, they're listed under the "snap beans" header towards the bottom of the page are all the cut shorts.

[james]

I have grown this bean. The seed I have might be good. It is old seed also I think you should get it from another source such as Sandhill. It is a great bean that is an heirloom. You probably know that. I wish I had room to grown it. I have large collection of beans and have had to limit what I can grow.

[macmex]

James, welcome to the forum! Also, thank you for offering to help. I think I helped Jenna back then, without mentioning it here.

Stick around and participate more. We would all be happy if you did!

George

[james]

Hi George. As I remember, Tennessee Cutshort is family heirloom from your family and is an excellent bean. I see that it is listed as available from Sandhill Preservation Center as mentioned above.

Cut short beans are different from other beans because the pod stays tender at the sellout stage so you don't need to shell them to cook them at that stage. You can cook the green nearly mature beans right in the pod and eat the whole thing. Also, I understand that cut shorts are good for drying to make so called "leather britches". I read about this although I haven't tried it myself.

[macmex]

It is a family heirloom from my wife's family, yes.

Technically a "cutshort bean" is a bean whose seed is crammed so tightly in the pod that they dry down with square ends, making the seed look like it has been "cut short." I've seen beans which were truly cutshorts which were no good at all for green beans. They had tough tough pods. The would work fine for dry beans. You can see an example of this tough cutshort in the thread An Experiment with Bean Crosses, I still have some of that seed in frozen storage. Just probably will never get around to growing it. It's not a variety but an F2 or F3 cross which would need stabilizing. 

Most cutshorts available through seed saving groups are tender podded because that's what people in yesteryear valued and that trait was very strong in many Appalachian strains.

Tennessee Cutshort almost certainly comes from a small geographical area in the Appalachians where someone took a cutshort and selected for non cutshort seeds with the same tender pods as most Appalachian cutshorts. They kept the name cutshort, even though, technically it is no longer one. We keep the name because that's what the originator called it. By whatever name... it's a great bean!