Isolating Pollination - Runner Beans

[mikey]

Morning all ....
and the makings of a beauty here in Lincolnshire, clear Blue sky and not a breath of wind, our local forecast is 22C (today and Monday)

I love growing varieties which are threatened or in short supply, which is why I joined the Heritage Seed Library some years ago, particularly Runner (and Broad) Beans.

This year I am growing some Runner Seed which we have named 'Margaret'. We inherited the parent plants when we bought the house in August 2005 and named them after the lady who sold us the house.
The plants were absolutely loaded with Bean pods, stringless (ish) and tasted lovely, so of course we saved seed.
I subscribe to the belief that plants become accustomed to their surroundings, soil, water, light etc. and become stronger season by season as each generation produces seed.

A neighbour thinks the variety may be 'Red Rum' (he had given away some plants early in 2005).

Suggestions please .....

How best to prevent or at least reduce cross pollination between 'Margaret' and other Runners growing nearby in my own or neighbours gardens ?

Have read up some info on the Web regarding caging plants and bagging flowers, both sound like a H*ll of a logistics job to prevent a few Bees and Insects from doing their thing.

thanks
Mikey

[mikey]

[Jeannine]

Mikey the recommended distance between different varieties of  runner beans to prevent pollintaion is 1/2 mile,they won't cross with French Beans though. XX Jeannine

[Robert_Brenchley]

Runners are pollinated by insects with long tongues; bees don't have long enough tongues, and will attack the nectary from the side, making a hole and failing to pollinate the flower. I haven't tried saving the seed myself (don't like runners!), but apparently you need to be careful to avoid cross-pollination. I wonder whether it would work to grow a few in big pots, under cover. Keep cutting them back, and hopefully they'll flower at a manageable size. You'd then need to hand-pollinate. The thing to watch out for would be the number of plants; if you use too few there's the danger of the strain segenerating with time. But do check and try to find someone who's done it before, as there may be better ways. Can you get advice from people in the Heritage Seed Library?

[Jeannine]

Mikey,I just thought, if you got the plants last year and saved seed from them, those seeds have come from plants that  have already been exposed to pollination in the neighbourhood,so it is probably too late. I would just plant them and enjoy.XX Jeannine

[Robert_Brenchley]

On the other hand, any cross-pollination is likely to be limited at this stage. It should be possible to grow the seed and select out clearly hybridised plants (this is the procedure used by people breeding native British bees, for instance, and it works), but if you let it go year on year, the amount of hybridisation will increase, with the danger of the original strain becoming unrecognisable.

[mikey]

Jeannine, Robert,

thanks for thoughts .... when Jeannine mentioned last season and the possibility they had already cross pollinated, I did an 'Oh Sh*t' but then reading Robert's comments, maybe all is not lost.

Robert, good thought, contact HSL (that's one of the reasons I joined, for help ha! ha!) will look on their Web site later, weather too good to be indoors right now, just nipped in to make a cuppa.

No doubt more A4A folks will have ideas  ;D

Cheers
Mikey

[allaboutliverpool]

I have been given some  "Long as your arm" beans from another plot He has grown them for a few years and they still grow pods over 2 feet long dispite practically everyone on the allotment growing runners.

Presumably if you grow them you only take seeds from the longest pods and therefore reduce the influence that cross pollination may have.

I shall be adding a runner bean page to my site shortly and it will document the success/failure that I have growing three varieties.

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments1_homepage.html

[saddad]

I grew Sunset in a polytunnel when they dropped off the list a few years ago and all the ones I grew out came true... to my amateur eyes, eg they had  the pnik flowers!
8)
Just come in to brew up as it is so hot out there!
;D

[CityChick]

Mikey - I think it depends what you're after...

If I wanted to save a variety as pure as possible then I would go down the cage it or bag it route as I think its the only way to prevent cross-pollination.

But if I was trying to save a variety I liked, that did well for me locally (which is what I think you said you were also trying to do) then I'd try saving the best of what I grew and only select those qualities I wanted eg bean shape, size, texture, colour, flower colour, seed color etc and see what I got.

Two other thoughts…

If you try to grow them as early as possible that might minimise the number of other runner bean flowers out there at the same time that they could cross pollinate with?

And I also remember reading the seed saving info on the RealSeeds website here:

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html

They suggest that for broad beans, which will also cross, that you grow them in blocks and only save seed from the beans in the middle of the block.  The idea being that the pollinating insects wouldn't visit the middle first, they'd work their way in from flower to flower from the outside in.

I'm just wondering if you could do something simillar with runners?  Maybe only save seed from ones in the middle of a row.  Or if you were growing them up a wigwam surround it with lot of other flowers insects like?  Either way it would up the chances of the insects being covered in pollen that would either be the same variety, or from a plant that wouldn't cross with the runners.

Neither would guarantee purity, but might up the odds a little in your favour?

On a side note, I noticed on the T&M website that they say Red Rum is a hybrid and won't breed true:

http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk/en/uk/product/88/1

[mikey]

On a side note, I noticed on the T&M website that they say Red Rum is a hybrid and won't breed true:

http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk/en/uk/product/88/1

CC, thanks for your thoughts ....

If Red Rum is indeed a hybrid and will not breed true, then, assuming my logic is correct, 'Margaret' cannot be Red Rum. Autumn 2005 and Autumn 2006 the flowers (deep Red) and vigour of the plants was identical, however crop was less in 2006, due I think to the very warm Spring.

Therefore ancestors must be A.N.Other Red flowered variety.

You are quite right .... I am not trying to save a pure variety (leave that to people like HDRA/HSL) but would like to perpetuate a strain which obviously loves my garden ground and we love it to grow and to eat.

I have seeds soaking on wet kitchen towel at the moment, will get them potted up into newspaper pots over next few days and into the ground as soon as I can, will try planting them in a 'square' with tall Sweet Peas (I always put a few Sweet Peas in my R. Bean and Climbing French Bean rows)

thanks
Mikey

[Tee Gee]

I have been given some  "Long as your arm" beans from another plot He has grown them for a few years and they still grow pods over 2 feet long dispite practically everyone on the allotment growing runners.

I grow some exhibition beans and they too grow quite long 18" + and these are seeds I save each year and I have noticed no apparent changes over this time.

I have been reading an article this morning about pollination in the RHS magazine.

Apparently Warwick University have been studying 'pollinators' and their habits and initial findings are that if the pollinator lands on the same type of foliage four times it will identify this plant/as a target and work on it.

If they don't find the same foliage on four consecutive occasion they fly off.

So this suggests to me that you can be your own worst enemy if you grow different varieties, in my case I only grow one so this is possibly the reason I don't  seem to have any problems with pollination.

So I will continue to grow my sweet peas up one side of the frame as an attractor and my runners on the other.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Which pollinators were they working with? There must be thousands of them, and I'd be very surprised indeed if everything except honeybees followed exactly the same pattern!

[Tee Gee]

Which pollinators were they working with? There must be thousands of them, and I'd be very surprised indeed if everything except honeybees followed exactly the same pattern!

They just mention 'insects' Robert

I just mentioned it for general information having read the article it just mentions that the insects have chemical receptors on their feet to identify the target plant/s.

Pity some people have nothing more to do that look at insects  ::)

Ah! well looks like we will have to add magnifying glasses to our tool kit plus ensure that we plant our plants out in groups of four in future   ;) ::)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Some insects certainly do have chemoreceptors on their feet, but it all sounds like gross generalisation.

[CityChick]

Wow!! the things you learn on A4A :D

[Jeannine]

River dancing bugs ...what next Xx Jeannine