Volunteer Beans

This is why the power of observation in the garden is so important. Photo shows bean seeds acquired from just three volunteer plants I found growing in the compost pile last year. The original bean seeds must have survived my cold z4b winter which is impressive in itself (last winter lowest temp here was -26F). I kept an eye on the plants all summer and left them to grow and produce pods and mature seeds.

The three plants were pole type, maybe half runner. Plants produced many nice sized green stringless pods which dried down papery and easy to shell as typical dry bean varieties do, so I assume they are some type of commercial or crossed up dry bean strains. Very productive plants as can be seen by the entire harvest shown in photo. That is a lot of bean seeds from three short vined plants, better yields than some of the full height pole strains I rely on and plant every year (granting the plants grew in pure compost, which is like supersoil).

What I find interesting is that I know for a fact that I do not have these in my pole or half runner bean collections and landraces, so I do not have any idea of their origin.  This coming growing season I will do an isolated trellised growout to observe them and get more seed. If satisfied I will then add these strains to either my pole or half runner dry bean landraces based on what the observations prove out.  I have no intention of maintaining pure inbred lines, not at all into such "heirloomy" things that serve no purpose to my food production goals.

I suspect treasures like these show up more than people realize, so keep your eyes open when out in the garden. You should be out there every day during the growing season checking things out, you should know what is going on in every square inch of your garden. I actually take the time on occasion to study each and every one of my food plants. I observe the flowering and fruit production. I observe the types and prevalence of pollinators so I can create habitat that caters to them. I catch insect or disease problems as early as possible so I can react quickly and deal with them. Such attention pays off in so many ways, almost incalculable but directly relates to quality and quantity of the harvest. It is a time investment in knowledge and learning which always pays dividends, on rare occasions little treasures can be discovered as well.

I have acquired quite a few decent strains of food plants unique to my gardens over the years by finding volunteers like this and allowing them to do their thing. This is an easy bonus method for acquiring locally adapted food plant strains, requiring minimal effort involving only observation and seed harvest followed by a trial growout next season. I offer a quiet, respectful thank you to Mother Nature every time she offers me such rewards, reaffirms to me that I just might be on the right track.

Lovely beans Tom.

The frost tolerant sub-strain of my bean landrace started because volunteers sprouted very early. Then 90% of them got frozen by early spring frosts. But some survived, and became the ancestors of a new bean growing method.

I really like the looks of those dried pods too. Nice and uniformly colored, no blemishes from molds or bugs. Even years before I started growing landraces I had a habit of keeping just the most blemish free pods for seeds. Over the years my heirloom KY Wonder pole beans morphed into a nearly disease free strain.  Pods are longer and straighter, and seeds are lighter color than other KY Wonders.

I mixed them into both my dry and snap bean landraces as well of course but also keep them as one of my handful of pure types.

I also keep a semi-runner pole bean landrace. I found a very old variety called Refugee, that only gets about four feet tall and has lots of side shoots. Happily, it and its descendants seem to be much more prone to crossing than most beans. I grow them crowded with both large pole and bush types and then select for the new semi-runner types.

I don't get a lot of volunteer beans in the spring. I think my soil stays to wet and unfrozen over winter.  I do get volunteers in late summer or early fall that sometimes manage to mature seed, so I've been moving them to a new landrace that can, for example be planted after an early patch of corn is nearly matured. When the ears are starting to dry good, I strip the leaves off the stalks and plant the beans.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Lovely beans Tom.

The frost tolerant sub-strain of my bean landrace started because volunteers sprouted very early. Then 90% of them got frozen by early spring frosts. But some survived, and became the ancestors of a new bean growing method.

I still grow the frost tolerant bush bean strain you gave me many years ago.  It has improved every year as it adapts to my local growing conditions.  I harvest enough of them now to include them in my fall planting bean experiments, plantings which regularly suffer an extremely high attrition rate but I am quite frankly astounded at the small but consistent success I am having.  I had started drawing conclusions that these experiments were rather pointless, but I have come to realize that I am basically engaging in aggressive radical selection.  I am not at all surprised at the high attrition rate that occurs every year, what amazes me is how even one bean seed can survive the long, cold, Minnesota winter and soggy, cold spring that follows, and be able to flourish during the growing season.  Plants that are hardier and more resistant to pest and disease pressures, and that consistently outproduce bean plants from seeds sown at the typical time here in May.

I do not quite know what I am trying to achieve with these experiments that began as more of a curiosity than anything else, but they do not take up much of my time or garden space so I continue on with them.  Something beneficial, most likely unexpected, will come from it sooner or later, as always happens.

Tom Knippel wrote:...my fall planting bean experiments...

Tom, when do you plant them? Do you figure they're germinating before freezing up for the winter or just waiting for spring to kick in? Are you doing anything abnormal in their planting other than the season? Exciting!

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Tom Knippel wrote:...my fall planting bean experiments...

Tom, when do you plant them? Do you figure they're germinating before freezing up for the winter or just waiting for spring to kick in? Are you doing anything abnormal in their planting other than the season? Exciting!

I sow the seeds as late as possible/practicable so they do not germinate, November sometime, sowing based on weather outlook. I figure any seeds that germinate in fall are obviously doomed.  I suspect this and disease/rot are the major factors contributing to the annually high attrition rate during the overwintering period, which I actually find acceptable because that is basically forcing selection for durable/reliable seed dormancy and disease resistance, and perhaps even more durable protective seed coats.  I fall-sow several food plant types using such a schedule.  My ideal planting scenario would be sowing one day followed by winter freezeup/snow that night, a schedule which rarely happens.

Remember, I have been fall-sowing bean seeds just to see what survives and comes up in spring, a scheme based on my observations regarding the timeline for successful wild volunteers.  I never intend on fall-sowing as a cropping strategy, my hopes are that such radical selection might get me some decent cold hardy lines which permit an extension of the growing season on both the front end and back end in order to extend the harvest. Consistently gaining just two weeks at each end of my growing season for warm weather crops like bush snap beans would be very acceptable to me, that would be a 25% increase in my typical P. vulgaris food production timeline.

I should mention I have no intention of ever using high and low tunnels as season extenders as I have found them to be a huge hassle and a big expense, especially for a solo growing operation, and the horrid prairie winds here quickly destroy the plastic.  Not to mention plastic is such a nasty unsustainable material laden with outgassing chemicals.  Another major issue is that tunnels as season extenders create perfect conditions that harbor and foster an incredible amount of disease and create habitat for insect and rodent pests.  Lastly, I simply do not have the time to deal with such things as setup and takedown because in late winter/early spring I am heavy into the maple sugaring season and in late fall I am busy doing fall cleanup, winter prep, and spring prep.  I much prefer to attempt to extend the growing season by picking away at it here and there, where I can, through plant breeding experiments followed by the development of locally adapted lines and then landraces (two concepts that have been adequately proven out to my satisfaction).  I do not harbor unrealistic fantasies about gaining anything more than these things.

An interesting little tidbit, by the way.  Last summer I was able to third crop bush snap beans because the fall frosts were greatly delayed (usually I just do two crops).  What was interesting was that my cold hardy strains easily survived two light frosts, uncovered, while my tender third crop grown from my mainline seeds just adjacent to those plants was completely taken out.  After those two light frosts we did not have another frost for another three weeks and that one was finally a hard killing frost that took everything out for good and ended my growing season.  I was munching on fresh snap beans from my cold hardy plants weeks after my tender maincrop had frozen out.

One last thing I wish to suggest to folks is that if you are not working on the development of your own locally adapted food plant strains you are missing out on what will sooner or later become a critical tenet of home/local/regional food production (quite possibly out of desperation, eventually).  You will not want to be behind the curve on this, especially the younger folks who have more of their lives ahead of them than behind them.  In my humble opinion local adaptation of food crops is a far more realistic, practical, valuable, and historically proven concept than many of the radical ideas and concepts being discussed in these forums.  Not that I seek to start any arguments, I just think a lot of people are thinking too hard and trying too hard, while neglecting or ignoring some of the most logical, basic stuff regarding consistently successful home food production.  

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Lovely beans Tom.

The frost tolerant sub-strain of my bean landrace started because volunteers sprouted very early. Then 90% of them got frozen by early spring frosts. But some survived, and became the ancestors of a new bean growing method.

You have no idea how much hope it gives me, knowing that frost tolerant beans are possible. Like regular beans, not just broad beans. I live in Yorkshire, Northern England, so any talk of breeding crops normally thought of as summer only to tolerate frost makes me pay attention.