My snail bean is slow to take off as well. It has gotten a bit more shaded since the corn and everything else grew up around it but I think this is preferable to it receiving high heat all day. So far PI 307778 is the most vigorous and unbothered. PI 311194 is struggling hard with very stunted growth. When things cool off in the fall they may take off.
Those vigorous ones look great!
I found some more information on the P. dumosus.
Year bean (Phaseolus dumosus) combines certain traits of P. coccineus and P. vulgaris. Like P. vulgaris, it has epigeal germination and anthers that dehisce toward the stigma, but in seed size and adaptation environment, the species resembles P. coccineus (Mina-Vargas et al. 2016, Bitocchi et al. 2017. P. dumosus has a root structure and perenniality intermediate between these species, and displays strong, thickened storage roots that can lead to weak perenniality, but which are not truly tuberous like those of P. coccineus (Schmit and Debouck 1991).
Long before humans entered the Americas through Beringia (Wells, 2003), a major natural crossing occurred in Central America: the genesis of P. dumosus. There, about 1-2 million years ago (Gepts et al., 2000), a wild P. vulgaris was crossed with P. coccineus, and backcrossed several times with P. coccineus and once with P. costaricensis (Mina-Vargas et al., 2016)
Cytoplasmic male-sterility (CMS) inducing failure of the microgametogenesis has however been observed in wild populations of P. coccineus, P. dumosus and P. vulgaris, as a mechanism to promote intra-specific gene flow (Hervieu et al., 1993; Hervieu et al., 1994).
One can see that where the bean crop and the respective wild form are sympatric hybridization is occurring: the year-bean P. dumosus, although as a crop extant from Veracruz down to Cajamarca, only has hybrid swarms in southwest Guatemala where its true wild form is distributed (Freytag and Debouck, 2002).
From the wild ancestral form of P. dumosus restricted to montane forests of southern Guatemala (Freytag and Debouck, 2002), a weedy form arises. This weedy form that is harvested in the wild and also cultivated has been able to invade a habitat with more humid conditions and at high elevation, as compared to those of P. vulgaris and P. coccineus, as an indication of invasiveness and novel ecological fitness. Interestingly, it shows resistance to fungi diseases such as anthracnose and white mold prevailing in these conditions (Hunter et al., 1982; Mahuku et al., 2002).
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The trellis is full. It got blown over three times during intense storms but nothing damaged except a few leaves. The trellis is full and tips are flipping over towards the ground. With it going into fall I decided to tip them to see if I can encourage some blooms and pod set. Right now it’s just all vegetative growth.
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Mine are the same. All vegetation and no blooms. We have about a month and a half before our first frost. Still waiting and watching.
I don’t have potassium fertilizer or potash but it could just be too much nitrogen making them go vegetative only.
I do have some fireplace ashes left over from last winter. I will dump them on top of the vines and water them in. It will get them some potash at least.
Mine are still quite small (maybe 18 inches of vine on the biggest) and not blooming. I did end up with all 3 varieties sprouting. I don’t have to worry about frost, so will keep watching.
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Picture time. Everyone loves pictures: rofl:
There are lots of full trellis at the top with year-long bean vines, just no flowering yet.
They’ve already had a full fireplace worth of ashes spread over them and watered in. Let’s see if that prompts anything. Tasting a leaf is definitely beany and a bit dry and a bit bitter.
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Big healthy plants. Mine are the same, still no flowers when all the other late flowering legumes are in blossom.
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They are said to grow to 10 meters which is 32 feet. A bit beyond my trellis ability. I don’t know what they have adapted to as the trigger growing in the rainy highlands of Guatemala. Bean plants in general have a rather large list of potential flowering triggers. Photoperiod we can do. Temperature usually cold weather delays onset of flowering and warmer weather encourages it. Hormones. Genetics. Nutrient availability, hence the ashes. Stress factors but these usually delay or inhibit flowering— salinity, drought, nutrients. I wonder if a spring start would influence flowering.
1966 Beans on Trellis have a friend living in amongst the leaves.
I have one 1966 that grew all alone. I did not trellis this one but allowed it to grow across the ground up vine up the Celosia plants next to it in wild fashion.
So far I have dumped fire place ashes on it, watered it in well once. Its turned cold, last night was a large rain event, power failure, the skys are overcast. The week ahead is rain and lower temperatures day and night.
And we have our first sign of flowering on the neglected year-long bean!
If I go give the trellised beans a critical eye once over I see it also has signs of flower stalk formation, however they are half the development / size as the one left to go across the ground and find celosia plants to vine up.
Its going to be a very cold Halloween due to the cold blast forecast to come down from Canada above the north west US states and then down into the South and beyond down into Mexico!
These beans really have their job cut out for them, and time is actually against them. Not having any data on this hybrid’s growth habits and only having regular garden bean varities to go on what the plant may be looking at:
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Flowering: Bean plants typically start flowering within 40 to 60 days after germination, although this can vary with the variety and environmental conditions and in the case of these year-long bean (natural hybrid hundreds of years ago), it was in vegetative growth a lot longer.
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Pollination: After the flowers open, they need to be pollinated. Bean plants can be self-pollinating, but they can also be pollinated by insects, such as bees, or by the wind. With the cold wet weather the insect pollinator population will be down. I saw one honey-bee this morning out front on one of my ornamentals and that was it for this morning’s observation. The only recorded information on pollinators is Carpenter Bees from a very brief Wikipedia entry. I have not seen carpenter bees here but we do have domesticated Italian honey bees. If they would substitute as a pollinator for this bean plant’s flowers remains to be seen.
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Pod Formation: After successful pollination, the flowers will wither, and small pods will start to form at the base of the flower. This usually occurs within a week or two after pollination. This would push the timing well into the territory of non-successful bean pod formation as the first frost in this area has been recorded as the earliest occuring around October 27th, and then by November 21st we are almost certain to have received at least one frost event.
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Pod Growth: The bean pods will continue to grow and develop over the course of several weeks. They will elongate and begin to fill out with the developing seeds. The exact time for this stage can vary depending on the bean variety and environmental conditions.
So it is good to know that Flowering can Eventually trigger in this year-long bean in growing conditions outside of their native Guatamala highlands habitat. However it may now require a spring planting for a long extended vegetative growth period these plants are perhaps used to in their native habitat to allow flowering, high pollinator insect counts and pod set and bean formation. That is unless the mild perenniality allows these specific bean plants in my garden overwinter successfully. The winter forecast is for colder than average temperatures as the very late onset El Nino weather pattern kicks in with force.
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40 to 60 days after germination would have meant much earlier flowering for me. I am beginning to see bud formations on my plants. I am going to consider covering them when we have our first frost, typically mid-November. I’m glad yours are blooming!
Unfortunately here we are quite warm and muggy with mid to high eighties today but in two days one of the largest cold fronts will cut through the south and gut punch Texas into instant days of hardly getting up to 44F days and at least two nights below freezing and a long recovery trying to get the temperature up again. Pretty much one of the coldest Halloweens in a very long time.
Even if covered, I think the beans might be severely impacted. I have to switch my hopes to root stock semi perenniality and below average cold winter survival of the root stock.
For those of you running out of warm weather, if your beans don’t flower check for tuberous roots. You might be able to lift and save over the winter like some folks apparently do with runners, and then you would be set to start next season. Just a thought! Good luck with this interesting project!
3 nights of below freezing temperature dips. The next week or two it is back to being warm and even hot again in Texas, then the next freezing dip is forecast.
I hope this is sending a signal to plant to start storing energy into the root system for some weak perenniality.
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Those look crunchy. We had an unexpected frost that burned my sweet potato leaves but the legumes were unbothered. I hope they do start storing energy into their roots.
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You and me both. They have gone mostly to a light tan color and crunchy since the photograph was taken. I’m all about letting it all die down on its own before cutting off the trellis so as much energy as possible can go to the roots.
I’ll do the same. I’m going to try that with some of the other tropical legumes I’m growing too.