Prinsesse NGB18186 and Blauhilde – the Grandchildren

Pods of the last harvest. Phaseolus vulgaris Prinsesse NGB18186 x Blauhilde F2

The best bean cross this year was no doubt the accidental cross between Prinsesse NGB18186 og Blauhilde. It is the F2 generation I have grown, and the seeds harvested is F3. It is confusing for most people. This years F3 seeds will grow the F3 plants next year, to produce the F4 generation of seeds. A little, but for understanding these photos, important detail is, that the seed surface consist of tissue from the mother plant, thus showing us F2 fænotypes. The inside of the seeds with the embryo is F3 tissue. Keep your mind clear, or just enjoy the photos 🙂

F2 generation with a wonderful diversity

Pod shape and colour show a great diversity in this F2 generation. In next generation even more diversity may show, as genes recombine. Some of the beans er quite long. Others are curved and charming, in a way usually selected against in breeding programs. Straight pods are preferred by consumers. As a gardener, I have to find out, if I really share this view on pod shape. I’ve read about german “posthörnchen”, strongly curved wax beans, reminding of old days posthorns.

F3 bean seeds, skin is F2 tissue

Each photo in the above mosaic show the seeds from a harvest event. In the first harvest are only seeds from the early maturing individuals. In following harvest events the same individuals probably also released pods. To me the first harvest is the most important, as cold climate is a limiting factor in beans in my garden.
A few seeds are very dark. One pod in the first harvest, and one in a later harvest. The same plant must have set more pods, with a different colour. This is all normal, as patterned beans tend to make an occasional “negative”.

 

Lima Bean Test

Lima bean Phaseolus lunatus Ganymede

Russ Crow from Illinois was kind enough to send me some beans, including two cultivars of lima beans.
He has an informative internet site:
www.abeancollectorswindow.com

This was my first time growing lima beans. It was hard to believe I could grow them up here in Denmark, when I read they prefer they heat of the southern USA. But I’m fond of testing new crops. I grew both cultivars in open ground (after a start indoor) and in greenhouse.

Lima bean Phaseolus lunatus Purple Eye

Lima bean in greenhouse (Purple Eye)

Both cultivars grew well in the greenhouse, though Purple Eye was considerably more productive than Ganymede.

Lima bean in open ground (Purple Eye)

In open ground they grew no higher than bush beans.
Purple Eye produced four pods, Ganymede none.

 

Bean Crossing

Open bean flower, ready for pollination

From Asturias in northern Spain, I got a nice tasty big white dry pole bean. But it’s a bit late, and for that reason not prolific in my garden. I’ve tried three varieties of this Asturian bean, none of them full-fill my wishes. Two of them I had sent directly from a gardener in Asturias. It’s the earliest varieties they have in Asturias.
The only way ahead is to breed my own pole bean of this type.

Bean Fabada da Asturias

Fabada da Asturias was the first pole bean of this type that I tried in my garden. I got it from Gerhard Bohl, Germany. Since I had Andecha, which is also a pole bean, with even bigger white seeds, from Anselmo in Asturias.

Bean Andecha

What cultivars should I cross them with? It should of course be an early bean, as the only thing I’m unhappy with is that they are late maturing.
An obvious choice could be an early bush bean, but I want a pole bean. Pole beans yield so much more than bush beans. In my garden, I can easily find poles to support the beans.
Therefore I will cross to early maturing pole beans that do well in my garden.

Bean Carré de Caen

Pole bean Carré de Caen proved to do well in the wet summer last year. It grew, flourished and set lots of beans almost endlessly. It has some similarity to the Asturian beans, being white and delicious, but the beans are very small. This I will use for crossing.

Bean Chabarowsk

Pole bean Chabarovsk grows really well in my garden, and is the first pole bean to ripen dry beans every year. It is a borlotto-type, but because of its earliness I will use it for crossing.

Normally beans self-pollinate before the flower opens. Therefore I have to pollinate before the flower opens. But when? I looked it up in Carop Deppes book “Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties”. She is not sure, but suggest beans behave like peas in this matter. Mother-plant flower must be quite undeveloped and small. Father-plant flower opened naturally the same day.

Both stigma and stamens are tightly wrapped in a conch-like spiral of the lower petals, the keel. As long as the stigma and stamens are sitting inside the keel, it is impossible to cross them. The keel has to be removed. I ruined three flowers learning how to do it. The conch-like keel is visible in the second image from the top (Fabada da Asturias). In the top image the keel has been twisted out of the keel.
Of course it is even more difficult with the mother-plant’s flowers, because they must remain on the plant. I pulled accidentally the flower of the plant several times – that makes no good cross. But even that I learned.

Bean flower stigmas hooked together

First the father-flower is prepared, since pollen is more robust than the stigma. Pollen is able to withstand a trip around the neighbourhood in bodily hairs on a bee! When both flowers are ready, there are several possibilities. Either the usual hand pollination, transferring the pollen directly from the stamens to the stigmas. In beans, usually self-pollinating, it’s possible use the pollen attached to the father-flower’s stigma. Stigmas ends in a spiral, so they readily hook together. I wonder if the pollen is released as the father-flower’s stigma dry out and wilt? Carol Deppe writes, that this hooking method is significantly more successful than the usual hand pollination. I played safe, used the stamens as brushes to paint a miniature of yellow on the stigma, before I hooked up the two stigmas.

The pollinated bean flowers
A: Carré de Caen x Andecha
C: Andecha x Chabarowsk
F: Chabarowsk x Fabada da Asturias

To protect the stigma and style from drying out in the summer sun, I put masking tape around. Note that the tape adheres to the remnants of the petals, but don’t touch the sepals. The tape hopefully come off along with the petals when the pod grows lengthwise. If the tape is adhering to the sepals, the tender pods may break when growing. Another bit of masking tape is sitting on the pedicel so it does not fall off with the flower. It must indicate that this flower is crossed. Finally, I write a letter with a waterproof pen on the pedicel tape, and break of any older flowers in the same cluster, so they do not take the all energy resulting in the abortion of my cross.
Now I can just wait and pray, and hope to see the pod develop in a week or so. Nothing more to do before harvest.

 

Danish Seed Savers exchange list

Frøsamlerne (Danish seed savers) exchange list 2011

Again this year the list is long and interesting: Danish Seed Savers exchange list

See eg. the exciting Caucasian Spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides), originating from the Caucasus, and with history of cultivation in Scandinavia, mostly in manor gardens.

In my garden I have a few frozen pots with seedlings of Caucasian Spinach, from the seeds I got last year from a seed savers. When spring comes, I’ll transplant them near a tree or shrub in the shade, where it may otherwise be difficult to grow vegetables.
On facebook, there is now a Group, Friends of Hablitzia tamnoides, the Caucasian Spinach

The old Danish Prinsesse bean

Prinsesse bean is a classic on the exchange list. It’s live Danish heritage, preserved by a vegetarian family for generations. 100 years ago it was a well-known cultivar, mentioned in gardening books as the earliest bean to grow. Now used mostly as dry bean, and then it’s a lovely name!
It is also spelled with c: Princesse

Do I need to translate the name: Princess it is in queens English 🙂

 

Crimson Flowered Broad Bean

Broad Bean ‘Crimson Flowered’ Vicia faba

‘Crimson Flowered’ is a very old heirloom. Red more about it at Daughter of the Soil.

This season I have planted a single seed of the variety ‘Crimson Flowered’ into my breeding project for purple seeded fava. Crimson Flowered has iridiscent green seeds. I want to combine the beautiful red flower with the purple seeds of my breeding project. It’s up to the bumblebees to do the pollination, the are better at it than I.

Next year I expect a few plants with flowers of a muddy color. That will be the plants resulting from crosses between Crimson Flowered and my purple seeded material. I will be exited to see how many (if any) red flowers that will show in two years, and if any of them will have purple seeds?

 

Breeding project purple fava bean, dwarf selection

Roottrainer with dwarf selection of purple seeded fava bean. Each row contains 4 plants from one unique motherplant

This year I decided it was time to separate dwarf plant from tall plants. To have the dwarf plants flower before the tall plants, I decided to start them in a roottrainer. I never tried a roottrainer before, but it is supposedly supporting better root development. I thought that big seeds would favor a special treatment. Ordinary trays probably would retard the root growth. Only one seed out of 28 didn’t sprout.

Dwarf selection of purple seeded fava bean. Each pot/box contains plants from a single motherplant.

Today I have transplanted to pots or boxes. Some plants are taller than others. Maybe the tall plants are tall because they were first to sprout, or maybe they are not dwarf, and thus shall not be allowed to set seeds or pollinate other plants. I will just wait and see how tall they grow. As long as I’m in doubt, I will remove any flowerbuds, and if they grow tall I can remove them completely.

 

New seeds from the seed meeting

Fieldpea ‘Biskopens gråært’

At the seed meeting there was a major seed exchange on the first evening (and during breaks the following days) I would like to introduce some of my new friends.

‘Biskopens gråært’ is one of the rare solid purple seeded pea varieties. It is a greypea, the oldfashioned fieldpea being a stable food in northern Europe in very old times. Now with famine well at distance the deserve a revival. I hope a famous chef will take courage to dicover it and serve it in modern ways. We have saved a treasure of these old peas.
This particular greypea is a swedish heirloom, passed on by SESAM, the swedish seed savers.

Russian heirloom ‘Goroh’

The pea ‘Goroh’ is an old russian heirloom from Kalmutskaya region in Russia. It has white flowers and rather small round green seeds, drying yellow. Originally from Dr. Tatiana Veronina (Moscow), via Seed Savers Exchange and a norwegian seed saver to Denmark. It can be eaten both as a snowpea and as a delicious and quickly boiling soup pea.

Wax pole bean ‘Gold of Bacau’

This wax pole bean has long broad yellow pods, and is an early romano-type. It’s an heirloom from the Bacau in northern Romania, passing Seed Savers Exchange on its route to Denmark. It’s said to have a gorgous taste, I look forward to the season.

Russian bush drybean ‘Bean 04-2006’

UPDATE february 2011 – I had a look in the original seedsamples, and noticed, that this and the following photo had been misplaced, now they show the correct cultivar.

Russian bush drybean ‘Bean 05-2006’

These two russian heirlooms Frøsamlerne has got from Lothar Juffa in East Friesland, Germany. They originates from volga-german families, settled near Omsk in Sibiria. Zarina Katharina the Great called in a lot of german peasants to settle on land she gave them on the Volga river. Later Staling executed a lot of them and resettled the rest in Sibiria, where they have lived since.
Both are early and prolific drybeans, the latter a bit earlier and slightly taller. I’m about to develop a weakness for these Volga-german varieties, as I have only good experiences with them – they have stand the test of time and hardship.

 

Fava breeding post updated

Now I have found pictures from 2006 and added them in the post:

Purple Fava Bean, one of my breeding projects

 

Purple Fava Bean, one of my breeding projects

2007 purple seeds of fava bean.

In autumn 2003 I recieved 10 seeds of ‘Estnisk Fava’ from a seedsaver in Sweden.

By the harvest 2004 I realised that it would be impossible for me to maintain the genetic balance in the highly variable landrace of favabean, since I started out with only 10 seeds, and no knowledge of this specific landrace. Also I didn’t know if the seeds had been selected for color (variation) before i had them. I could not honestly tell others, that what I am growing is true ‘Estnisk Fava’. This fact on the other side presented a freedom to select according to my own will, just remembering to call it something else.

I set the goal to create a breed with purple seeds.

In 2004 I also had a dwarf fava ‘The Sutton’ in my garden. Later it appear to have crossed in to my young breeding project.

In 2005 I sow the 9 purple seeds harvested the year before. The rest of the seeds (not purples) we cooked. From these 9 seeds 5 plants had purple seeds in variable amounts and sizes, and 4 plants had green seeds with black eyes, extremely identical in colour and size.

2005 The harvest of purple seeds, sorted by motherplant. Apart from these, 4 plants had green seeds with black eyes.

Because of limited space, I didn’t sow all seeds, but some seeds from alle plants, and then more from plant 2 and 6, since they made the best harvest by weight. From plant 6 I sowes alle the seeds, since they had a good size

2006 I sowed seeds out from all plants with purple seeds, but planted extra seeds from the better plants. This year the rate of green seeds decreased from aprox. 50% to aprox. 25% this year. It’s sliding the right way, and I conclude that the gene for purple seeds is dominant to green color. Now I must act carefully to insure it will be an attractive new varity. Purple seeds alone is not enough to me.

2006 Seeds after motherplants 2A to 2E

2006 Seeds after motherplants 3A to 3B

2006 Seeds after motherplants 4A to 4F

2006 Seeds after motherplants 5A to 5B

2006 Seeds after motherplants 6A to 6F

A few dwarfed plants showed up in the motherplant 6 line.

A few dwarf plants showed up in the motherplant 6 lineage two years after the cross took place, indicating the dwarfness to be recessive to normal height. I realise, that the cross has taken place, and that I’m not making a selection of ‘Estnisk Fava’, but the busy humblebees has brought genes for ‘The Sutton’ into the material. Interesting – but now I decide if I like or not the dwarfness. Decision making is the most important part of plantbreeding. What is best depends on the eyes – will I have the same eyes in 5 years as today?
I decide to bring the dwarf gene in to future generations, later seperating it or roughing it out. At this point I want to nurse the genetic variation for future recombination.

2006 is also the year I realise that ‘Estnisk Fava’ is a swedification of ‘Estisk Fava’ collected in Estonia by Lila Towl, chaiman of Frøsamlerne, the danish seed savers.

In 2007 I sow out, so 4 of 5 plants from 2004 is still represented in the material. No green seeds are allowed. More seeds are sown from attractive motherplants. You could say I deliberately slow down the selection process. It’s a technique to end up with a more favorable strain in the end of the process, by balancing selection and variation.

2007 Front plants have inherited the dwarfness from ‘The Sutton’ and purple seeds from ‘Estisk Fava’.

This year I’ve registred several treats of the 40 plants I will be selecting the next generation from.
My registration of 40 fava plants for breeding
Coding under the following pictures refer to this list. First parentplants name, ex. 6A, followed by plant number, ex. 1. So 6A1 is plant 1 with the motherplant 6a, witch again had the motherplant 6, seed in the picture from 2005.

After thinking, I’ve decided it’s time to grow a seperate dwarf line. They could be usefull potgrown in small gardens and on patios. I can possibly isolate them in the greenhouse or with netting. Growing them in pots would also avoid pods getting in contact with the ground, with risk of rotting.

2007 Here are the seeds of the dwarf plants selected for breeding, top left 6A1, 6A3, 6B4, bottom left 6B7, 6C32 og 6C40.

Not all the dwarfs are deep purple, and one had only a small harvest, but the latter is very dwarf (20cm), but again I want more variation before a strong selection.

Among the tall plants I’ve selected for a good harvest, large seeds and purple seeds. I’ve decided to let a single greenseeded plant continue into next generation because it resprouts so well with pods. It is a treat wich could lead to a variety with a very long harvest period. A treat wanted by private gardeners favoring eating fresh favaseeds on a daily basis during summer. Out of genetic and aesthetic curiosness I will introduce a plant of crimson flowered ‘Crimson’, to learn if I can have red flowers and pruple seeds in my material. It might take some years to se a result of this, but I’m only happy waiting.

2007 Tall purple fava, top left 5A9, 5A10, 5A11, bottom left 6D13, 6D14 og 6E15.

2007 Tall purple fava, top left 3A20, 2A27, bottom left 2B29 og 2B30.

2007 Tall purple fava, top left 6C34, 6C36, bottom left 6C37 og 6C39. a one euro coin in middle.

In the next years I still expect to have some plants with green seeds in every generation. It’s the price I pay to have better resprouting and introducing red flowers. With the latter treat I must be alert, and notice if the trait for purple seeds work different than the trait for greens seeds. Purple seeds and red flowers are different ways of expressing anthocyanins in the plant tissues.

Now is the time to thank the busy bumblebees. Without them it would be troublesome to cross favabeans. Thank you smalle friends, see you when spring comes again.

 

Colour variations in the borlotto bean

In 2005 I took these photos of my harvest of Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco nano. It’s a kidney bean with red stripes on the pods.

I have experimented with the colour variants, and found them to be genetically identical. The two varieties grown seperately turn out the same, both having more light colored beans than dark. The can even be in the same pod as seen below. The experiment is really simple, only a question of keeping records and tagging your beans in the garden, while growing and eating the same number of beans you would otherwise do.

Oh – no… I have not been cheating. This was really what surprised me on opening the pod.

Ps. I found these old photos inspirede by Veggies-only