Guide for saving bean seed

[macmex]

I wish I could place this guide directly into the forum. But I don't know how to do that and preserve the format and pictures. Here's a link to download a PDF guide I did.

www.dropbox.com/s/4w15b05515f43qg/saving%20beans.pdf?dl=0

If you have had a garden this summer, even if you didn't plan on saving seed, there's a chance you might yet be able to do so. Basically, all you have to do is let some pods dry on the plants, shell them, make sure they are GOOD and dry, place in an airtight container and freeze for at least two days. After two days they may be removed from the freezer. But don't open them until they have warmed to room temperature.

Beans are one of most common heirlooms out there. They are easy to do and there are many different tastes in beans. Our region has received people from many places. Just the Native Americans have come from a lot of different places! If you like to "talk gardening," keep your eyes open for beans which have been handed down through families. If they have been grown here for some time, chances are they are well adapted to our climate and growing conditions. The most common snap beans sold in big box stores (Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake) are not very well suited for our heat. Often they don't set pods for much of the summer. Beans adapted to our heat do better.

George
Tahlequah, OK


Tennessee Cutshort: One of Our Family Heirlooms

[snickeringbear]

Nice writeup George.

Ñuña beans are a type from South America that have been selected for centuries for their ability to pop similar to popcorn when heated. If you have cooked popcorn in a pan with oil, the process is similar, but the ñuña beans pop to about double or at most four times the volume of the original bean. They are a very tasty snack. A major caution is that most ñuña's are daylength sensitive and will only flower and fruit when days are between 11 and 13 hours long. In other words, here in the U.S. most of us have summer days too long for normal flowering.


Non-climbers do not have a key gene that makes them twine around objects as they grow upward. The result is that they sprawl across the ground which increases light exposure and significantly increases fruiting potential. They have a disadvantage that the beans are often in contact with the soil resulting in losses to pests and fungi. Most non-climbers have half-runner type growth habit though I have seen one with runners 10 feet long that could not climb. Non-climbers are common in western states where low rainfall levels limit damage from fungi. Anasazi Red and Anasazi Gold are two typical non-climbers with half-runner habit. If you live in a hot humid climate, these beans can be grown by making an arch of hog wire laid down on each side of a thick planted row of beans. The plants will sprawl over the wire which keeps the beans off the ground.

There are 5 subtypes of the common bean - Phaseolus Vulgaris - which are 'commonly' grown. There are genetic barriers that limit inter-crossing between the types. They can still cross but the offspring may have problems reproducing. Kidney beans are one type which is common here in the U.S. Most varieties are in the common pole bean group which is a second type.

There are two sub-types of lima beans, sieva and potato type. They are far enough apart genetically that they rarely cross in the garden. Christmas Lima for example will very rarely cross with Carolina Red Sieva. Sieva types are common in the southern tier of states while potato types are common in the northern tier. I grew Dr. Martin lima this year which is a potato type lima bean that produces heavily in my garden. It will be carried next year by Sandhill Preservation. www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/seed_menu.html

Tepary beans (Phaseolus Acutifolius) are the most drought tolerant disease tolerant beans normally grown. They have important traits for disease tolerance and fast maturity that are being bred into other bean species. Teparies are common in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S. I have 4 or 5 hybrid varieties that should be grown out again next year for fresh seed and I have a couple of pure teparies to trial. Interestingly, pure teparies are intolerant of excessive rainfall. A typical year with 50 to 60 inches of rain in my area severely limits their production.

Beans are often categorized by use such as snap, shelling, dry, or leather britches. Most of us grow beans adapted for one or at most two uses. Woods Mountain Crazy beans are a bush type George likes to grow for snaps though they can also be harvested at the green mature 'shelling' stage. Turkey Craw is a common variety that can be used all 4 ways which is a rare combination of traits.

No discussion of beans is complete without talking about the dizzying array of colors and flavors they exhibit. Brown, orange, black, white, pink, red, purple, yellow, green, striped, spotted, speckled, long, short, fat, skinny, curled, straight, all are available and can easily be found and grown.

I love to make crosses between different beans with the purpose of selecting outstanding traits in the offspring. Fortex is an exceptional snap pole bean but has several flaws - production is low, poor disease tolerance, and little heat tolerance. I got Oaxacan 5-1 from ARS-Grin a couple of years ago and found that it is highly productive, highly disease tolerant, and blows away all other beans I've grown for heat tolerance. I interplanted a short row of Fortex with Oaxacan 5-1 this year for the explicit purpose of letting the bumble bees do their thing. I saved only the Fortex seed. How will I be able to pick out the crosses? Oaxacan 5-1 has pink flowers, Fortex has white flowers. By saving only Fortex seed, any plants with pink flowers will be hybrids.

[macmex]

Snickeringbear, by any chance is you name Darryl?! Thank you! Thank you for such a great contribution!
What a great glimpse into appropriate techniques for home breeding! Might you consider starting a thread on this topic?

George

[glen]

Here in Panama I have been growing what I call yard long beans. They are climbers and grow very tall. They produce long beans, 12 inches or more in length. I have seen several variety's. I do not know if these beans are actual yard long beans or not since I have grown other asian style string beans that get much longer than this and look slightly different. They taste the best if you pick them before the seeds start developing. They seem to like heat. However, my vines are tired and are not producing beans any longer. I think it has something to do with day length this time of year. One variety I have seen has black seeds. The variety I am growing has brown seeds. The flavor is similar. I cannot know the names of the variety's since I am just using seeds picked from other people's vines. The diversity of different variety's and habits makes beans very interesting and useful to grow in the garden.

[macmex]

Glen, those are a from a branch of the cowpea family. They can cross with cowpeas, but not with regular beans or lima beans. I bet there are some day length sensitive types out there, especially at your latitude. I grow Georgia Long, which is a variety with red/putty colored seed and 24" long pods. I understand that "Long Beans," as these were once known, in the USA, were a popular fad in the 1800s, but then faded from popularity. They should be more popular in warmer areas. I know Georgia Long thrives in lots of heat.

Here's an interesting story. I received seed for Georgia Long
I received seed for this variety in 1987, from a Virgil and Hazel Johnson of Liberty, Missouri. They, in turn, had received their seed from Faxon Stinnet, of Vian, Oklahoma. Faxon Stinnet commented in 1987, that he had been gardening for 75 years.

Right after obtaining seed, my wife Jerreth and I shared some seed of Georgia Long, with her grandparents in Salem, Illinois (southern part of the state). They grew it every year from then until at least 1997. Grandma passed away in 1995 and Grandpa’s health was so poor, that in 1997 he presented me with a bottle of seed and asked me to keep it going from him, as he couldn’t garden any more. He had forgotten that we had given the variety to them originally. While growing this “bean,” Grandpa planted about 20 feet on tripods and had so many that he absolutely couldn’t eat them all. He would put out his surplus on a picnic table in the front lawn and a sign advertising free green beans! (I still have some of the 1996/1997 seed, in the same bottle. It tested out at nearly 100% germination in 2007! I still got something like 60% germination on that seed in 2009.)

We lost our seed sometime between 1988 and 1992, when we lived in a very high cold rain forest in the Mexican state of Puebla. Life was too unsettled to keep seed going, and most of our heirloom varieties were not suited to that climate. We got more seed from Jerreth’s grandparents in 1994, and grew it until 2000, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, in an irrigated desert environment. It did very well in the desert. This variety likes heat and tolerates white alkali conditions.

Anyway, we moved to Tahlequah, Oklahoma in 2005. Shortly after that, I looked this bean up in my records, as it did so extremely well in our conditions. I was surprised to discover that I could trace it back to Vian. That's less than an hour away from our home! The bean had come full circle!

[glen]

Great story. I am just going to call my beans long beans now. I really don't have any variety that I am attached to yet here. I have a different variety started in grow sacks now. I had no idea that the seeds would keep as long as you describe.

[glen]

George, the guide, or PDF that you did is no longer accessable. Can you please somehow provide us with an active link?

[macmex]

Done. Thanks for reminding me that I had even done this. I had forgotten!

George

[macmex]

The dropbox link worked for me just now (3/28/2022). Let me know if it gives you any trouble. We need to work on adding more details to this topic.

I would mention that as the years go by I find myself isolating beans with greater distance, barrier crops and often time between plantings. For instance, I can do a spring planting and a late summer planting in the same general area of the garden, getting a mid summer seed crop from the spring planting, pulling those plants before fall, and then obtaining a pure seed harvest from the mid summer planting, which then had no opportunity to cross. 

[chrysanthemum]

Macmex, with your guidance last year, I saved bean seed for the first time. It’s the Rattlesnake variety, so it’s not rare or in need of conservation, but I was very interested in getting seed even more acclimated to my hot climate and not having to purchase a new pack every year. I set some vines aside and got some fine pods dried down during the summer. I froze the beans for much longer than the two days necessary, but they’re now in their jar in my pantry waiting for planting, perhaps later this summer depending on how things go.

I had another pack of seed in storage for a purple pole bean called Carminat, and I didn’t want to risk crossing in my small garden, so I decided to plant exclusively Carminat this spring. I’m worried that I’m going to lose out on summer production if it doesn’t tolerate heat so well as Rattlesnake, so it was a hard decision for me not to plant any of my saved seed yet. I’ll see how it goes, and if it is successful I’ll plan to follow the same procedure to save seed from it as well. I just put seeds in the ground on Saturday. I’ll be excited when shoots start popping up.

[macmex]

I know that struggle. Hopefully the purple beans do well for you this spring and summer. If not, perhaps you can do a fall planting.

[heavyhitterokra]

chrysanthemum,

Thanks to my seed trading over the years, I have about a dozen or so French Horticultural Beans to try out this summer. Hopefully, I'll be successful at saving a few seeds to share by this time next year. That would be awesome if I can do it. I never know if my beans will survive the deer though.

Ever since you mentioned Succotash earlier in the year, I've had a craving for those old beans.  Summer can't come soon enough, though I know by Early September, I'll be more than ready for it to go back where it came from. 

[chrysanthemum]

I hope they do well for you. I’ve never eaten them anywhere outside of my childhood home, and they are like a comfort food to me.

I have to admit that I’m delighted by spring, and I’m excited to get plants out to the garden, but I dread summer’s heat down here.

[heavyhitterokra]

I know what you mean. It got up to 73 here today and I was down to my tee-shirt, digging and transplanting thornless blackberries, thinking, "It's not even warm yet and I'm already sweating. How will I ever make it through that hot summer weather come July and August if I'm already sweating the first week of April?"

Of course, yesterday morning it was down to 25-degrees here, so that was quite an abrupt change in temperature, but still ...