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muddypaws4ever

All beans grow true to seed?

muddypaws4ever
11 years ago

I read somewhere -- and now I can't remember where -- that all bean seeds will grow true to their parent and there is no need to look for "heirloom" bean seeds in order to save seed for next year's crop. Sounds too good to be true but as a new vege gardener I thought I'd ask.

Thoughts?

Comment (1)

  • jimster
    11 years ago

    What you read is correct.

    While it is possible to cross pollinate beans to make hybrid seed, the process is difficult and making hybrid seed on a large scale is impractical. Therefore, all commercially produced bean seed is open pollinated.

    This is different from tomatoes or corn, where the methods for controlled cross pollination make it easy to produce F1 hybrid seed in large quantities. This is why you will see many F1 hybrid corn and tomato varieties, but no beans.

    Jim