Big Question On Saving Bean Seed

[GoDawgs]

The Blue Ribbons have a lot of nice fat pods loaded with big fat seeds but they're not dry yet. Last week we had two mornings with lows of 29. Although the beans were covered they still took a hit. The foliage on the top and sides got burned and now looks definitely dead. Inside those thick plants there's some green foliage and the bean pods inside the plants are fine. The beans hanging on the outside are toast. We have another cold snap coming after these few repeat days of 80.

Question: What should I do to save the bean seed? If I pick them green and dry them on screens will they be viable as planting seed or do they need to dry on the vine? Should I pull the plants and hang them somewhere? The only place to hang them would be in an unheated tool shed which will protect from further frost but will still be almost as cold as outside temps.

These beans will be for next year's planting so I really need to save them as I don't have any more seed. Any advice will be appreciated!

[Labradors]

I would pick the most dead looking ones and take out the beans. Put them on trays or plates inside the house to dry. You don't need that many! (I find that 6 of each variety is more than enough for us (two people) even though I always save bags of them.....

[pondgardener]

@GoDawgs There are at least a dozen videos on YouTube, you may want to check them out. I am planning to save some bean seeds this year for the first time and am interested in what others do.

[GoDawgs]

I would pick the most dead looking ones and take out the beans. Put them on trays or plates inside the house to dry. You don't need that many! (I find that 6 of each variety is more than enough for us (two people) even though I always save bags of them.....

I have a large garden and need about 50 for 18' at 4" spacing.

[GoDawgs]

@GoDawgs There are at least a dozen videos on YouTube, you may want to check them out. I am planning to save some bean seeds this year for the first time and am interested in what others do.

Thanks for that but I'm hoping for some personal experience from people here who have "been there, done that" as I don't trust a lot of You Tube advice. Been burned by that before.

[Seven Bends]

I don't have any expertise in this area, so I too am hoping someone knows the answers to the questions you asked. But here's my experience from this year, for what it's worth.

I received five seeds of Wyatt snap bean from the MMMM and grew them out this year. Nice bean! I waited too long to leave some beans on the plants to mature for seeds, so the pods weren't fully dry by the time cold weather arrived. Before the frost, I picked all the pods that seemed fat enough to possibly contain mature seeds, and I spread them out on a couple of paper plates indoors to dry. (Should have used a rack; was too lazy to fish it out of the cabinet.) Some of them I left in the pods and some of them I shelled.

Fully mature beans left in leathery, relatively thin (not fleshy) pods dried fine. Fully mature beans left in still-fleshy pods ended up with some dark spots like mold or rot on the seed coats by the time they became dry enough to shell. I don't know if they'll be usable or not but I'm guessing not. I'll store them separately and test a few next year. Fully mature beans that I shelled right away dried fine, even if the pods weren't fully dried when I picked and shelled the beans. Less than fully mature beans that I shelled right away shriveled/wrinkled as they dried; total loss, not surprising. It just wasn't necessarily easy to tell which were fully mature when I shelled them, so the shriveling was a useful outcome.

Is most of the flesh gone from the pods, so what you have is leathery, flexible but hollow pods with seeds inside, not fully dry? If so, I think you'll be fine just picking the pods and drying them on racks or shelling the seeds and drying them. But if the pods still have a lot of flesh, I think you might not get usable seeds.

If temps won't get down much below 32 and you have another warm-up coming, I'd pick only those pods that are leathery/partially dried out, leaving any that are still fleshy, and cover the plant to protect it to give the fleshy pods more time to mature. If it's going to get colder than that or your warm period is at an end, I guess you could try the hanging plant method. Or maybe you could dig out a couple of the plants that have the most pods and just drop them down in pots and set them inside somewhere for a week or so?

Good luck; hope you get the seeds you need.

[GoDawgs]

@Seven Bends, thanks for your detailing of what you faced and what steps you tried. VERY helpful!
I'm afraid that I'm in that "waited too long" boat. Most of the bean pods are still in the fleshy stage. I will most likely do your drying at different stages process and see what happens but I've yet to find any that are getting leathery at all. There is a rack I can use instead of my usual paper plates.

I like your thought about potting up a couple of plants and bringing them indoors just to see what happens. They can go out on the porch on sunny days and be brought in at night if necessary. This is what the next six days look like before it warms up again.



This morning I was poking around the internet and one source said that beans on plants pulled up and hung would continue to mature "for a little while". Hmmm, I wonder how long that is. I intend to find out. Hang some, pot up a few and leave some in the ground and cover up. I think that's going to be the strategy.

This morning I started cutting off all of the frost damaged foliage as that can't be good for the health of the plants. It was to give the remaining green foliage and the beans as much exposure to the sun as possible for as long as possible. All beans that were edible but obviously won't get fat were picked for one last side dish.

[Whwoz]

Would pull and hang plants myself, but potting up a couple sounds interesting too. Looking forward to hearing how they do.

[Uncle_Feist]

Pull the most mature pods and dry them for next years seed. Never shell seeds from green pods if you want the best germination.

[rxkeith]

pretty much what uncle feist says.

bean pods don't have to be fully dry to save seeds from. if they are at the leathery stage where the top of the pod
is starting to dry out, that is often good enough. you can pick them, bring them in doors, and let them dry out more.
they don't have to be crispy dry at this stage either, and i think it is some times better to get them out of the pod after
a certain point if it is humid, and the pods aren't drying out fast enough. those are conditions for mold to develop. make
sure pods are lying flat, and not in a pile. turn them so both sides dry. really keep an eye on them. if the pods come in wet
mold can grow quickly. bean seeds in pod can take light frost, and still be ok. harder frosts can kill or damage the seed. the color
might be off, and seed can fall apart with light pressure when fully dry is my experience.
i have heard some people hang the plants, but i have no experience doing that.
also never potted up a mature plant. seems like too much work for little gain. maybe try a plastic bucket over a couple plants
or something like a painter tarp to buy some added time if the temp is near freezing.
if you get no seeds worth saving, let me know. i can send you some seeds. i don't have a lot saved this year, but i can spare you a few.
sandhill preservation usually has them too. thats where i got mine from initially.
you are covered.


keith

[JRinPA]

What I did this year was to put a twister around some nice EARLY beans so I didn't pick them, let them dry, and avoided this problem.

I have had half dried looking bean pods that I kept and put away for seed end up being all furry with mold. I'm sure I got some pods that went okay but it was not reliable. I feel like rxkeith says, bring them in to dry but don't let them in the pod too long if it is humid. Maybe even tie them up and hang them to dry.

Also I would think if they maybe immature go ahead and cut the vine itself, leaving the pods attached, so maybe they can finish seed formation a little better. Just seems like that would work.

[rxkeith]

hanging would certainly help with air circulation around the bean pods, and help the drying process along.
you will have a better chance of obtaining good seeds from pods that have at least started to dry. if hanging
helps the seed to mature, you want that. any beans that are still firm and fleshy at the top, will probably not
give you mature enough seeds. you will be able to tell when you crack the dry pod open. seeds will be under sized
and lack the mature color on the seed coat.

it also never hurts to designate a small section of a row for seed saving, and make sure any significant other is aware
of your intent.

when storing beans, they need to be ALL THE WAY DRY. how long that takes is not exact. all my seed dries down pretty good
once the wood stove gets fired up. a dry enough bean should make a higher pitch ticking sound if you drop it on a counter top.
you also should not be able to dent the seed with your finger nail.

lastly, when saving bean seeds, pay attention to the color of the seed coat. beans mostly self pollinate, but sometimes a busy
bee intervenes. i have a small amount of blue ribbon, and jumbo seeds that are crossed. my uncle steve pole beans have crossed
in the past. some crosses are worth developing, others are not. you want to keep the variety pure.


keith

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday I cut off all the funky foliage to expose the remaining green leaves to as much sun as possible for the next few days, hoping to give the beans more time to at least think about drying down.



Lots of fat pods with big seed in them but not yet starting to turn brown.





I really appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Despite gardening for a lot of years I've never messed with drying beans because the bean beetles always spoil those spring planted beans. Now I've found that they hardly mess with fall beans at all so now I can save them.

After reading all the responses I think the process will be a combination of pulling and hanging most of the plants tomorrow morning before afternoon rain moves in, potting up a few just for grins and giggles (bringing them into the house under lights) and leaving a few in the ground and covering them up well against that 37 low before uncovering them again. Another experiment!

Meanwhile, I pulled the first turnips today, seven of them totaling 3 lbs. I was cutting frosted foliage off the row and found them. Yay!





Good old Purple Tops. They're a 55 day veg and although today is 63 days after seeding, those bigger ones probably were pickable right around 55-58 days.

I'm going to roll the dice and sow another row this afternoon. Soil temp is right, they'll be up quickly and I can always put a plastic tunnel over the seedlings if necessary. can't hurt to try, right? And the seed is dirt cheap at the feed 'n weed.

[JRinPA]

Turnips..I think I remember where I put the turnips and rutabagas... All the rows over there at the comm garden look alike now with radish, daikon, turnip, rutabaga. The cover crop looks a little different. We only had one little freeze so far.

[rdback]

... potting up a few just for grins and giggles (bringing them into the house under lights)

Sounds like an interesting experiment. But remember, beans are aphid magnets, so be very careful, or you could have an aphid war on our hands. Aphid wars in the house are hard-fought and seldom won, lol. Good luck with the experiment!

[GoDawgs]

The Save The Beans For Seed experiment begins! These are three of the four bundles of plants that I pulled up and hung up in the garden shed:



Then I potted up as best as I could four plants in a three gallon pot to be brought inside as needed. They were unwieldy, wanted to hang over everywhere and it wasn't easy covering roots that kept coming back out when the plant flopped. I ended up putting a tree branch in the middle and surrounded the plants around it with baling twine.



Then I left some plants in the ground but moved the tunnel hoops closer. If freeze or frost threatens I will lay several layers of light row cover over the plants themselves and cover the hoops with plastic.



I also brought in some fat beans that had fallen off the plants and put them on one of the plant light shelves to see how they dry. Once they're dry and rattle around I'll shell them and see if they look plantable.



And finally, Pickles started hoovering up leaves for mulching the garden and now also for addition to the new compost bins as needed. Witness the start of the Big Leaf Pile! The leaves have just begun to fall.

[rxkeith]

there are two on the rack that look like they are turning color.
the rest of them don't look like they are far enough along for seed saving yet.
keep those plants in pots, and in ground alive as long as you can. i'll guess another
three weeks or so. they tend to take awhile in my experience. once the pods start to
change color, you will have a better chance. i sometimes make a small slit in a pod to see
how far developed the bean inside is. i do it on the back side of the bean, so the seed stays
attached to the pod.


keith

[GoDawgs]

@rxkeith , thanks for that extra info and a guess as to how long turning might take. I had no feel for that.