I’m also with @stephane_rave here with needing to do an autumn planting cause spring doesn’t work well for me either and @Hugo for working on hotter/drier circumstances.
What do you guys think about this kind of fava? It seems like kind of another category almost with smaller beans but other uses. Could it be interesting to add into a winter sown mix? If so I think I still have time to buy a packet and bring back to France before I leave North America.
looks like “feverolle” which I use in my cover crop mixes. I though it was for animal food, but I still put some in my mix two years ago. worth a try .
Yeah I wonder if it’s like an improved feverolle? I’m curious about the use for greens too.
Let’s talk about it in the fall!
Hi to everyone, I’m pleased to be a part of this focus group!
I grow favas in Finland at 61.5°N. I started out in 2022 with a mix of 35 accessions and landraces, about 10 of those being from NordGen seedbank. Since then, I’ve added seeds from Going to Seed US and members of this group.
Main selection is for earliness: early autumn gets rainy and humid here, so many seeds will rot quite quickly if left out too long. It works best if I harvest pods individually as soon as they turn black and dry out, rather than wait for a majority to turn black.
Overall, I’ve been surprised with how much the appearance of the population changes from year to year. The amount and variation of ‘purples’ has increased over the years. I had very few to begin with (they were black at first), but now count around 15 variations (although some variation is probably due to non-genetic factors). Will Bonsall refers to the purple tannin or anthocyanin as a “cellular-antifreeze” which helps them germinate in cooler soils… so it would make sense as I had been planting them “just after the snow melts”.
Thus far, I have been trying to keep as diverse of population as possible, though I’ve started to grow a separate low vicine/convicine population. It seems favas with white hilums (and/or pure white flowers) tend to have less of the anti-nutritional (and bitter) VC compounds; but, at the same time, it seems that higher levels of vicine account for increased yield… sooo there are some tradeoffs. Also, the commercial seed industry in Finland already does this kind of breeding, so I will likely continue to prioritize overall diversity.
Some 2025 colors:
Variation in 2025 ‘purples’ (dried seed/hard to photograph but I tried):
My ‘starter packs’ in 2022:
Link to cool broad bean book (we could make a euro-version someday):
Can you elaborate on the fact that these variations are not genetic?
Your population is amazing…it’s crazy to see that starting with mostly white varieties, your mix turns purple!
I feel like fava bean hybridization is easy. Here, my basic mix only had two colors: purple and green… Two years later, I had green/purple and purple/green dotted fava beans…
Now that my mix is starting to become rich in diversity, I’m hoping for some crazy recombinations.
I would like us all to achieve this kind ofmix put together by Joseph Simcox: 
I think it’s the most beautiful grex I’ve ever seen… with this, we would have no trouble convincing people to play with plant genetics…
Sorry, I had so many side comments I wanted to add, but was also trying to keep the post short. I meant that it seems that some variations in a seed’s appearance might be relating to things like: how and when the seed dries out. This year, some of my seeds were probably harvested in a slightly immature state… and then they start to dry rapidly and this might affect how the compounds in the seed oxidize and change appearance over time. (It’s also interesting to look at the 3-4 year old seeds and see how much they have continued to change in color).
Also, some of the speckle pattern in my purple favas seems that it could be air bubbles between (or within) the seed coat (testa?) and cotyledon. Whereas in your photo, it is more clearly pigmentation or a pattern.
Then again, one can probably rightly argue that all those cosmetic variations that result from the drying behavior are nevertheless a result of subtle genetic differences in things like the seed coat thickness and its vapor permeability… and how that then affects how the various chemical compounds in the coat organize themselves and then react together.
Looking at your photo of fingerprint, red-cheek, and psychedelic galaxy/cosmos favas… it becomes interesting to think about where exactly those colors and patterns are located and how they are produced. My quick internet searches are not giving me, the impatient neophyte, the doctoral-level knowledge that I want on this topic…
Also I have been told by a researcher that, in relation to the poor cross-pollination of legumes, they have some epigenetics flexibility , which means they may seem different but not necessarily with a different genetic content, just different genetic expression.
However, the Simcox fava mix (most beautifull fava grex indeed) obviouly shows genetic differences, not just diverse genetic expression. THis kind of diversity is my dream..
Do you think my dotted fava beans are just a epigenetic expression or a crossbreed?
What is surprising about the fava bean shaped like footprints is that the pattern is raised, like a growth on the shell… I don’t understand why nature would create this kind of eccentricity.
The seeds are more visible with special colors or patterns… so probably easier for predators to spot…
Unless it’s a strategy to attract humans and encourage them to share, spread, and cultivate them… Damn, guys, we’ve been domesticated by beans. 
I have no certainty , but I would not bet much on the idea that your speckled ones are crosses. I would check if they continue to appear during the following years..
Here’s what I found very quickly: it turns out that the crossbreeding rate of fava beans is quite high 
:
“Abstract
The latest research in Europe on the floral biology of Vicia faba highlights a very strong tendency toward vicinism in this species. Observations in Morocco, however, show that there is relatively little pollen exchange (vicinism rate estimated at 3 to 5 depending on the year) between plots separated by a 1m to 1.50m alley. On the other hand, a very significant exchange of pollen between immediately neighboring plants has been demonstrated by dissemination tests of recessive plants (white grain) in a dominant population (brown and purple grain). The percentage of natural hybridization between immediately neighboring plants was 23.6 in 1960 and 30.1 in 1961. The hybrid plants thus obtained show a high degree of heterosis; their yield can reach up to 227% of the average yield of the two parents. The impact of this phenomenon on the selection of bean varieties is discussed.”
yes, they require high proximity to cross. This is why I sow them 3-4 seeds of different colors in the same hole ! and very dense rows.
this is not in contradiction to the epi-genetics behaviour of the skin.
The inability to pin down the out-crossing rate is kind of funny. I’ve seen from 1%-87%.
“Faba beans are a crop with a mixed mating system and fertilization can occur through self-pollination as well as cross-pollination. In fact, pollination of faba beans can occur in three ways: auto-pollination (without any aid), pollination by insects with the pollen from the same flower through flower tripping (self-pollination) and pollination by pollen transfer from one flower to another by pollinators (cross-pollination) [5,6]. In such species, outcrossing occurs when two or more varieties are grown in proximity in field conditions. It is, therefore, necessary to grow faba beans in isolation to maintain the genetic purity of varieties [7]. However, limited information is available on the extent of natural outcrossing and the isolation distance required to prevent the outcrossing of faba beans. The rate of outcrossing in faba beans varies from 7–82% depending upon the genotype, environment and planting arrangement [8]. Pope and Bond [9] found that outcrossing decreased with increasing distance from the pollen source, ranging from 17% at 0.9 m, 1.25% at 92 m and 0.59% at 184 m. Similarly, Bond and Poulsen [10] reported an outcrossing of 4–84% and Gottschalk [11] reported 40%. Suso et al. [12] studied faba bean outcrossing in two locations and reported 65% in Cordoba (Spain) and 33% in Rennes (France). These large differences in the outcrossing rate apparently depend on genetic and environmental factors as well as methods of measurement. In insect-pollinated crops, pollinator abundance, diversity, activity and foraging behavior represent the major ecological factors potentially affecting the outcrossing rate [13].”
j’ai récupéré hier soir dans un troc local de graines, 3 graines de fève blanche provenant d’une communauté chinoise cultivant à 3000m d’altitude ! 
Il me manque beaucoup d’accessions d’Amérique du Sud (les plus intéressante) et Australie, et après j’aurais des fèves de tous les continents dans mon mix.
Si quelqu’un trouve des fèves sur une autre planète, qu’il nous les fasse parvenir ! 
sowed my second series of fava yesterday, very pleasant because the weather was perfect.
and checked that the first series is coming out.
