Beans evolutive mix

Hi!

Is there anyone out there with experience in cultivation of beans evolutive mixtures?

The picture shows the one I have been growing for about five years now. It Is composed by 4-5 old varieties obtained from elderly people in my village and by some hybrids randomly occuring now and then. It Is quite interesting to see the proportions of the various phenotypes changing year after year in responce to environmental conditions.

I wonder if the mixture will finally evolve intro a homogeneous variety one day or the diversity willl be kept

Have a nice day!

I'm also attempting to form a landrace or hybrid swarm of common beans. But they cross so infrequently, and I started with such a wide set of beans, that I haven't really observed much hybridization yet. But I think it would be neat if in 20 years, I have something that's quite customized to my property.

I Christopher,

When I started growing beans people told me that they do not interbreed, so I did not mind spacing the different kinds.

Then I noticed that bumblebees and also my honey bees (which are very near to the beans plot) actually break closed beans flowers ro access the interior.

Due to this fact I get four or five new hybrids every year.

So maybe increasing pollination (naturally or artificially) could help to get more variations

Have a nice afternoon!

If I'm remembering correctly, Joseph Lofthouse says that he sees about a 5% hybridization rate in common beans. Even if it's only 5%, I think that's enough to do what I want -- it'll just take a few years at my relatively small scale.

From what I understand.

Lima beans are supposed to easily cross pollinate with each other, over more than twenty years, mine never have.

Runner beans are supposed to easily cross pollinate with each other, same thing, over more twenty years, mine never have.

Common beans are only rarely supposed to cross pollinate with each other, mine do it all the time.

Due to this fact I get four or five new hybrids every year

New crosses are generally not identifiable in the year the cross occurred. The F1 crossed seeds will look just like the other seeds from the mother variety. All the beans from growing the F1 seeds will look the same but probably different than the mother. Growing the F2 seeds can yield a bunch of different kinds, I've confirmed as many as six and it may be more. That segregation goes on for years, but I don't know how many years. The result is that it is a lot of trouble trying to keep track for sure. It is hard enough if just one actual cross has happened but if two or three have happened and you grow it all in a mix it becomes pretty much impossible, I just gave up on it.

I grow some of my beans as individual semi-isolated varieties for specific uses. It is only when I find an off-type in one of them that I know a new cross (rather than on going segregation) has happened. I pull them out of the individual variety and add them to the mixed-up group the next season. I don't try at all to keep track anymore; it's just more trouble than it's worth. As they keep segregating, I just let nature take its course and figure the best adapted make the most seeds each year and thus get replanted the most.

Why the other species that are supposed too easily cross, never have is a mystery to me.

Thank you for your experience!

I totally agree about the fact than keeping track of the breeding stages is useless for our purposes, the fundamental aspect Is that hybrids arise, develop and/or disappear according to environmental conditions.

Are you sure that F1 hybrids do not show a different phenotypes the first year they are generated? My experience about the year I got my first brunch of hybrids is this:

I grew two varieties (Lamon bean and Vogel bean, a local Italian and a German variety) close to each other. Plants located at the border between the plots where the two varieties were grown produced around 10 hybrid beans in, let's say, two or three different pods.
They were all very similar and I immediately recognized them as hybrids because they were clearly different from both the parents.
Then, the following year I separately sow these F1 beans and obtained maybe 5-10 different phenotypes from them (basically each plant produced a different new bean).

So if you are sure that F1 beans are not different from the mother plant, maybe the seeds I got (which were supposed to be pure strains) were already hybridized before.

I found (scant) references to xenia effect in favas and peas, but none for common beans. In my own bean growing, there is considerable variation in what a single phenotype looks like based on maturity, hydration, age, etc. and so I've always ignored those differences and just waited for next year to see what comes out. But it would be cool to be wrong!

Actually Xenia effects Is exactly what I thought I observed on my first group of hybrids

Maybe I should have mentioned from the beginning I'm considering phaseolus vulgaris

I'd have never imagined that beans genetics could be so misterious ahah

Thank you again!

There are probably others but the only crop I know of where the xenia effect can be easily seen is corn and even there it isn't always so. The seed coat is the same on all seeds from an individual plant but like Christopher said a lot of non-genetic factors can cause differences in appearance.

The embryo inside the seed is different though and sometimes you'll see odd looking seeds even though the seed coat is the same. They are maybe fatter than the others or shaped a little different.  I think that might be due to a mismatch of the crossed embryo with the mother seed coat, which I guess could be due to the xenia effect, but it also might just be another non-genetic thing. In any event sorting them out and tracking them to see for sure is again, more trouble that its worth to me.

What makes me think that the F1 hybrids actually showed a different phenotype (so Xenia effect if parent seeds were actually pure strains) is that they were so different from the parents that it is difficult to me to imagine that they were simply modified by external conditions. To give you an idea, I attach pictures of the parents (Vogel and Lamon beans) and of something similar to the sons I obtained that year (even though the photos are not true, I forgot to take pictures before sowing them the following year).

(Just to be clear, I'm not telling you are wrong, it's just to discuss this interesting topic, maybe my non-native English could seem a bit rude sometimes)

I have likewise never observed an obvious xenia effect in beans though me, and my seed breeding network have looked for it a lot. A xenia effect would show up on only one seed, the one that received the foreign pollen this year. We observe that F1 hybrid seed looks just like the pollen receiving parent.

Then the next generation all beans on the F1 plant look like the same type of a new bean.

In the F2 generation, lots of different colors and shapes might show up. Then for the F3, F4, the rate of new types diminishes, but even till the F7 or F8 generations, a new type might show up not from crossing, but from segregation.

I likewise stopped trying to chase the hybrids. I figure that those that fit best into my ecosystem and habits will stay around and reproduce better than those less suited. Some hybrids might end up less fit than their parents, and will die out. Others may thrive.

Thank you Joseph.
So I think I definetly have to consider that my original "pure" strains already had some degree of hybridization when the seeds came into my hands.
Indeed, I observed exactly what you say: a homogeneous phenotype in the F2 beans (which I wrongly considered my F1 hybrids) and many new phenotypes from them the following generation.

By the way, your mix looks wonderful to me, a piece of art. It is also so interesting to observe how many beans in our mixtures have very similar appearance even thought we are far away.
This makes me think that beans phenotypes are probably relatively few.

Here's some of the phenotypes I observe. I grow more than 70 different types based on seed shape/color. This harvest occurred in 2020.

Here's a similar sort from 2015 with about 40 different phenotypes.

I love sorting into histograms. This quickly shows that the "little pink bean", and the "pinto" bean really do well for me. Again I found about 40 varieties back in  2017.

Here's the sorting from 2018.

Here's the 2019 sort.

These all descended from one seed. This represents the entire harvest of the F2 generation, grown in 2019. Many of these varieties still grow in my landrace.

Here's another naturally occurring hybrid.

Thank you again for sharing such an interesting experience!

I found the idea of beans hystograms so useful, I think I will try it this autumn as soon as I will get this year harvest, just to compare with older seed lots left from last years after spring sowing. So far I've never metodically followed my mixture evolution but I think that getting a quantiative idea besides the qualitative knowledge that the mixture is evolving could also be interesting.

I also find amazing the fact that the white black/dark-brown dotted bean you isolated and showed in the last picture is exaclty equal to one of the hybrids I got from my F2 generation. I don't remember if it is still there, but I will post it as soon as I'll be able to check.

Just to know, how is the climate like where you cultivate these beans?

Have a nice afternoon!

There does seem to be common patterns and colors that show up in beans. For example, a cross between a white and black bean may result in a brown bean or a speckled bean that looks exactly like some other completely unrelated bean. Another reason trying to keep track of it all is just way too much trouble to me.

Another mystery with my beans is that apparently my conditions are not compatible with more colorful beans. I plant blue beans or red beans or whatever, but they just seem to select themselves out.  Only way to keep them is to plant them separately and give special attention like more watering or picking off bugs and you might sense a theme here, but again that's just more trouble than it's worth.

And another thing, I prefer a bean that climbs but not to excessive heights. Something in the range of four to six feet keep them up away from the ground and easier to pick but not so giant that I have to build tall trellises. I find a nice what I call semi-vining bean and the next year it turns back into a giant vine. Even bush beans do it sometimes. I have no idea what causes it and my efforts at selection against it have mostly failed. I found a bean called Refugee that supposedly dated back to the late 1700's, and it had a great semi-vining and branching habit. It crossed and threw a bunch of new semi-vining offspring, and I thought I had hit the jackpot but since then they have all turned back into big vines.

Mark, happy to hear that you also noticed the presence of recurrent patterns in new hybrids.
I've been thinking about this fact since I began to get hybrids and noticed their similarity to named variesties coming from all around the world. There are often heirloom varieties here and there on the web, reported since centuries, and almost equal to other varieties found in very far countries. I imagined that this was mainly due to migration of people, for example from Europe to America, bringing their beans with them, but I'm now thinking that these almost-equal-looking populations could have also developed independently.

The fact that your environmental conditions influence the presence of colorful beans is also fascinating.
Are you referring specifically to climatic conditions? How is your climate like?

Thank you!

I agree, migration and trading may play a role, but I think when it comes to appearance of bean seed there just are particular colors and shapes that commonly show up. Actually, the same colors and patterns show up on beans of very different shape and size. It's easy to get focused on just the appearance of a bean seed when it is really only one of lots of traits. Beans that look exactly the same can have very different growth habits and so on.

Like Joseph's, one of my consistently and reliably productive beans are Pinto beans. Except I don't really know what a Pinto bean is. Basically, I think it is just a tan colored bean with darker mottling except lots of beans look exactly like that that they are not at all the same. My Pinto beans came from a store-bought bag that got lost in the back of the pantry for several years and instead of discarding, I planted them, and I've grown them ever since.  

I don't know that environmental conditions explain the issue with the more colorful beans, I just don't have any other ideas on it. Not sure how to describe our climate either, you ask about forty years too late for that. We have four seasons, or we used to, but they aren't as clearly defined anymore. It gets hot here, 35 C isn't uncommon, and it can get hotter. It gets cold too, -25 C is possible although, thankfully not very often or for very long at a time. We have longer and more frequent periods without rain now, but it can also rain 15 cm in a couple hours so. Same in winter, not much snow anymore but it can still do it pretty dramatically. Ice storms are much more common than they used to be, as is large hail. Overall, it has become less hospitable to beans, the whole species, and I've began supplementing them some with cowpeas, (Vigna unguiculata) which seem more tolerant of conditions and more productive.

I have about 90 frost free days per year. The beans experience blazing hot sunny days. Chilly radiant cooled nights. Super low humidity. We might have a thunderstorm once or twice a summer. Otherwise, no rain falls, and I irrigate regularly during the growing season.

I likewise select for the semi-vining trait. Perhaps more accurately, the beans self-select for the semi-vining trait, because they out-compete the weeds better.