I suspect I have another week or two before the first of these beans starts to dry down. When we reach that point, should I replant the resulting seed immediately, or wait for it to dry completely?
This pod has only 1 seed.
Actually, I begin to think the mice are nibbling them off. There was a cluster of 5-6 tepary pods starting to grow, and they’re all gone. That might be where the flowers are going as well.
I’m going to move them back where they were and provide supplemental light. I can’t risk the hand pollinations being nibbled.
2 Likes
An interesting little twist here. I planted two more standard tepary beans, and one of them has a cluster of 5 leaves rather than 3.
I hadn’t known this was possible.
3 Likes
Got the first ripe bean. All white, so not visibly a cross. I’ll wait until it’s dry to plant it. 4 other beans in the pod failed to develop.
So 40 days to full maturity, and the second pod is on day 28.
Day 35 on the 2nd pod and one of the beans (the farthest from the flower, so more likely to be a cross) has stopped developing. I took it out, closed up the pod again, and I’m going to try growing it.
The third pod didn’t abort, but it’s growing very slowly. At 18 days it’s nearly the same size as week 1.
Damn… crazy mice 
Plant breeding is already hard enough. I didn’t think they would go after bean pods?
Does this mean Tepary bean pods are edible raw?
I know they are edible cooked but I’ve also seen many gardeners on youtube snack on them raw too (Altho I wouldn’t recomend eating a bunch of them raw anyways, cuz they still have mild poisons).
WOW! A 5 leaf tepary bean is incredible! How did it even happen? Weird mutation? stess?
will this 5 leaflet trait continue? Might be worth saving seeds form that one as 5 leaves might be an advantageous trait.
Many times that is the case as seedcoat is still maternal material (Techically part of the mother plant, only the embyro is both mother & father plant).
This makes me wonder tho, if you take a small bean like tepary & cross it with a huge bean like runner bean, will it be more easy to see the hybrids, since a seedcoat can’t hide the physical size of the hybridized embyro?
I’m thinking the same concept applies to many other plants like small vs big squash seed hybrids, small vs big tomato seed hybrids, ect.
Nice! That is actually really good time to get hybrid bean seeds. This proves it’s possible to speed run them & pump out multiple generations a year.
OOh! curious how it grows.
odd the 3rd pod didn’t grow much…
I have a major mouse problem at the moment. This seems to be normal, they all want to move in for the winter, but this year’s invasion has been exceptional.
I found their major food source (my seeds, and a big bag of BOSS) and removed it, so they’re hungry. They were eating the flowers off of both plants, eating the young beans and nibbling the leaves of the tepary, but didn’t touch the leaves of the common bean. Older bean pods appear to be safe, although a few years ago I had a packrat that collected a bunch of beans into my guitar. SMH
They have been eating other plants as well (my vanilla orchid!), but they’re hungry enough that most traps catch something within a couple hours.
1 Like
I did some research and it appears that 5 leaves is a possible, although not common, mutation. This one appears to be at least possibly stress related, although I suspect if it didn’t have the mutation stress wouldn’t have brought it out.
The rest of the leaves on this plant are sets of 3.
1 Like
I believe that is exactly the case, but in a large cavity fruit like a tomato or a squash there’s more room for variety. If offspring in nature is too large or grows too fast for the mother, either all other embryos will abort to accommodate, or the odd offspring will abort, depending on the mother’s nature.
A larger embryo in the constraints of a bean pod might be twisted, squashed, split, or dried out and dead if it split the pod at the wrong time.
However, for thousands of years our ancestors have been discarding anything different. Beans that are larger, smaller, twisted, split, are automatically considered rejects rather than being considered possible crosses. Basically selecting against the possibility of crosses and reinforcing traits that require inbreeding.
1 Like
I think the third pod didn’t grow because I now have 5 plants in a tiny pot. They’re all showing signs of stress. In a few days I’m going to transfer them to hydroponics so there’s at least less nutrient stress.
So, how can I give this seed the best possible chance? I suspect my house is too cold (keeping it at 67 degrees) so I can add heat. Remove the seed coat? Keep it in a humid environment but not directly wet?
Since it was so young and had stopped growing, it might not be able to work through its seed coat.
oh dang… I’ve also lost some seeds that were drying due to mice. I’ve just used carefully positioned mouse traps, placing them exactly at the path of least resistance, where they run thru without thinking too much. The funny part, is there is no food and it still gets them.
I remember staying up late & hearing them nibble on my seeds 
. I turned on the light, moved to look and then scram they ran off. Eventually all 3 mice got caught in the mouse traps.
Also you were growing Vanilla Orchids!? OOh! How did you get your plants started? Will Grocery Store Vanilla Bean pods contain any viable seeds to grow them or is it from cutting?
It doesn’t seem like there is much of a seed coat there. I’d probably put it in a small cup of warm water so it could drink up well (For like a day) and then plant as soon as I see a tail forming on the seed.
I think the warm mat idea is a good one! I would still be careful with the seedcoat, you might damage the embyro by trying to take it off, I do know however after the seed has had time to soak up water, the seed coat removes more easily (But this happens naturally when you see a root/tail forming).
1 Like
First the bean. I have it arranged above a heating mat so the temperature is right around 75 degrees. I removed a bit of the seed coat, on the opposite side from the embryo. It’s been about a week and no sign of germination.
I purchased the vanilla orchid, along with two piper nigrum. The vanilla is MUCH easier to keep alive. They are also very easy to propagate. Break a piece off, stick it in water. Boom. I give pieces to anyone I think might be interested, which isn’t many.
Seed propagation is very complicated, usually done in a clean room, blah, blah, blah. The “bean” you purchased has likely been heat treated. They’re picked green and basically steamed to bring out the flavor. If they’re allowed to ripen they break open and scatter millions of seeds like dust. If one finds the exact conditions it might grow. Unlikely, as it requires light, heat, water and a particular type of arboreal fungus.
Each seed is only three cells, so no nutrients and no real “life.” It needs the fungus to break through the cell wall to eat the seed. The vanilla then parasitizes the fungus to start growing. This process is standard for orchids.
The mice just nibbled the leaves, no real damage. The plants are very much alive. Three years old, no flowers yet.
2 Likes
Mice, I’m catching an average of 2-5 per day. Hear a snap, empty the trap, reset. They ate the bait flapper on the other trap. SMH.
I was in full seed mode when I started finding little stashes of empty seeds around the house. The little idiots almost cleaned me out of this year’s watermelon seeds. Melon and cucumber were next favorite, then squash.
Everything is packed away in glass bottles now, no paper, no plastic. They’re vulnerable when they’re drying.
hmm… that is concerning. It’s probably dying or rotting but if it’s convenient might as well see what it does next, just in case if it actually is growing really slowly.
Oh WOW! I did not know that, seeds are tiny like dust? Makes them very impracticle to sow.
I just wonder how would breeding work be done with Vanilla Orchids tho?
Maybe new vanilla type flavors can be created? Idk but fun potential.
I’d like to landrace Vanilla, but if it’s so easy to propagate by cutting, does it make sense to landrace it?
Orchids are some crazy different plants 
, they are all about crazy level of exact specifics. Tho shouldn’t this fungus be growing with the plant you had from cuttings?
Yikes! 
Smart! Only downside about glass is, if they fall they break. But at least they are mouse proof (Until mice figure out a way to kick them off shelves so they smash open).
I find Metal Boxes works great at keeping my seeds safe while still having the convince of using plastic bags to store my seeds.
Thankfully they can’t chew thru metal.
As I understand it, the fungus needed for vanilla orchids is almost extinct in the wild. It doesn’t live on live plant matter and most orchids have been vegetatively propagated for so long that there would be no trace of the original.
There is hybridization work being done, but it’s all in clean rooms and labs.
I love orchids and have grown a lot of them, much easier to do than a lot of people think. I have never tried growing them from seed though. I remember going to the library, back when that was a thing and researching them. They are very different critters as I recall, the seeds aren’t seeds in the same way as a bean or something, but I don’t remember the details. I’ve never grown a vanilla orchid either, but I love that stuff, maybe I should give them a try.
I think Alan Kapluer grew and bred orchids. If I recall the word “grex” originally described a multigenerational population of orchids.
We visited a farm in Hawaii one time; it was something to see for sure but one time taking a detour around Indianapolis Indiana in the middle of flat ugly industrial ag ground we saw a little rusty sign by a gravel road advertising an orchid farm. We turned down it and across a railroad track came in view of rows and rows of very large greenhouses. An old fellow and a couple of cats invited us in and gave us a tour. I guess it would take pretty much all of Hawaii to match what was in them. He sells them to retailers like big box grocery stores and the like. He also rents them on contract to places like corporate offices and hotels in Indy and Chicago, replacing those whose blooms have faded with new ones on a rotation making money on the same plant, over and over again.
He breeds them too, we were only allowed to look in the windows of that part of his operation, but the windows were too fogged up to see anything. He gave me a miniature phalaenopsis with bright yellow flowers and much more fragrance than that species usually has. I’ll try to remember to post a photo, next time it blooms. Not that it has much to do with the topic of beans. 
The bean is definitely rotting, starting from where I broke the skin. If I try this again, I don’t break the skin.
I now have 3 possible teparyXcommon which I will start in hydroponics. Two different mothers.
2 Likes
Nice! I’m a excited to see how they grow!