Your Jacob's Cattle production was low. It typically produces similar to Hutterite.

Suggest you get some Calypso to grow for next year.

DarJones

Fusion thank you for the Calypso bean suggestion, I will be ordering some from Fedco seeds for next season.

I do plan on moving my beans to a drier area in the garden, so hopefully that will help my production.

Here is my list of dry bush beans for next season so far:

• Hutterite
• Jacob's Cattle
• Vermont Cranberry
• Calypso

thanks,
Dean

Dean,

You've gone and made me a bean counter for a day. :)

By far, my most produtive dry bean had an increase of 402 to 1. It was a stray bean in a pack. It had 5' twining vines. The above increase is why I don't care for bush beans, very much.

Gary

Tormato, your results closely mirror my own. A single plant of the pole bean "Brita's Foot Long" produced 8 ounces of dry seed one year - and that was just what I harvested before frost killed it (I ate the rest as shellies). At 50 seeds/ounce, that's a 400/1 increase. I prefer pole varieties for their productivity, but still grow at least one bush bean for seed each year.

While there are quite a few heirloom pole dry beans, the majority of the most popular dry beans are bush. I second Fusion's recommendation of "Calypso", which performed very well for me in a trial several years ago. Quite productive, and there was very little spoilage due to rain during the drying period.

Since my trials have revolved around a search for good shell beans, I've mostly focused on large-seeded varieties. "Bumblebee" was disappointing; while the seeds were very large, the skin of the shelly was tough, and I lost a lot to spoilage. I had better results with "Tiger Eye", which produced a large tasty shelly, a very attractive dry bean, and had a fairly good yield. There are several commercial sources for both.

But for the most part, I grow heirlooms, or varieties which have been dropped commercially. The two bush varieties I grew this year were "Atlas" (dropped commercially in 2004) and "Monterosa" (which I obtained through the USDA). Both are red-speckled, with moderately large seeds. The yield from "Monterosa" was only fair... but I grew it on a plot of relatively poor fertility, so I might try it again on better soil.

"Atlas" was sent to me by a GW member, who hoped I might be able to revive some old, nearly-dead seed. Out of 50 seeds, I got only one to sprout, which I coddled. That one plant was impressive, producing 80 seeds... not enough to share just yet, but I hope to grow it in quantity next year.

My two best performers as bush beans:

"PI 507984" (from the USDA) is exceptionally vigorous, has had no disease problems, and sets a very heavy crop. The seeds are quite large, especially as a shelly (1" long), drying to a speckled white & maroon-black. Because the maroon coloration is so intense, much of it is kept during cooking. Very early too for such a large-seeded bean, my dry harvest was complete in 95 days.

"Light Brown Zebra" (from an SSE member) is a very heavily-branched bush that sprawls a little. The pods & seeds are small, but borne in huge numbers. The seed is white or gray, with black concentric stripes. I spent a lot of time picking these, but was rewarded with a very large yield. The pods shrink down tightly over the seeds, so spoilage due to moisture was minimal. A Canadian seed company (can't remember which one right now) obtained seed from me, and is now offering it commercially. It would be my next best recommendation for a dry bean, after "Calypso". Vermont Bean carries a very similar variety, "Peregion".

"PI 507984" is a truly remarkable bush shelly or dry bean. The plants branch heavily and produce a large crop of very large shellies. There are up to 40 pods per plant.

As the dry seeds are small, it appears that one could store a lot of food in a small space.

I wish we could give a name that describes it. How about "Red Tarka"? (As near as I can tell, one of the meanings of the Hungarian word "tarka" is "mottled".)

"I wish we could give a name that describes it. How about "Red Tarka"?"

Wow, you speak Hungarian??? :-0

I wish it had a better name also... it is worthy of more widespread cultivation, and certainly deserves a name of its own. Since it had none originally, I could have legitimately given it one when I first acquired the seed. Unfortunately, that time is now past, since I have already distributed it to others under its USDA accession number.

Unless, that is, both of us look up everyone we've sent it to (I've kept records, though they are somewhat disorganized) and everyone agrees to the change. We'd have to do that soon, before the SSE Yearbook submissions are due. I'm game, as long as we verify the proper Hungarian description prior to making the change. I'll contact you offline.

However, it's possible that someone else has already given it a name. Check out "Littlefield's Special" in the link below; the photo & description appear to be very similar. I've sent Tanya several beans in recent years, can't remember if "PI 507984" is one of them... I'll find out when I go through my records.

BTW, Heritage Harvest Seed is the one that carries the "Light Brown Zebra" that I mentioned above.

Here is a link that might be useful: Heritage Harvest Seed

Hmm. The "Littlefield's Special" picture does look very much like our bean. On the other hand, they seem to be saying that it is a black and white bean. All the other references I can find in the Internet and also the reference in the SSE yearbook say that "Littlefield's Special" is black and white.

My Hungarian is quite limited. "Tarka" is about it! What I did was to take the phrase "DEBRECENI TARKA SZÃRAZBAB" from http://www.civisseed.hu/en/babfajtak.html and did a search of each word. The first word is the name of the town that their bean came from. The second word means mottled. The third word appears to mean "dried bean"

I also thought about "Red Tarka Szarazbab" as a name but that might be a bit ponderous for us English speaking folks. At least "Tarka" would give some credit to it's origin. And there is "Hungarian Tarka" or "Hungarian Red Mottled" or "Hungarian Red Giant" If you do name it, it's your choice.

We just had a pot of soup made with these fine beans. They do hold their color well.

I do not think I had any takers from my SSE listing, but I do have records, also disorganized.

I had great luck with PI 507984, which I have been calling Pi-50. Only shelled about half the pods, the rest are strung out to dry. The shellie size beans are huge, the dried beans are beautiful. The ones I shelled are mostly dry with a few still drying. I just weighed them and I got one pound, two and a quarter oz. That's only half the pods from only eight plants.

They were very early too. Since I got no spring peas this year, the PI-50 were the first plants to produce snap beans to snack on raw in the garden.