DIACOL NIMA: Ex Colombia, Pan American Breeding Programme of the 1950's bred by Louis Camacho of the Instituto Colombiana de Agropecuaria.
COFINEL: Bred at INRA Versailles by Bannerot's group by crossing Contender with Cornell 49-242. Used as secondary source of 'Are' anthracnose resistance gene.
COCO-R No 2: One of three rather similar breeding lines released by INRA to myself (then working in Uganda) and French seed companies in which the 'Are' gene had been put into BC4 lines of 'improved' Coco nain blanc precoce beans. This line was used directly in hybridization breeding after receipt and also selected through line breeding as a pure line and subsequently released in France as Coquette. It is probably a 'sib' line of Coblanc released by another Company but it is shorter and of earlier maturity than that cultivar.
SURVIVAL: A single plant selection from a PI line of the Brown Swedish class which may in fact have been the old Weibull variety Stella which it closely resembled. It has very early maturity and an upright habit with an adequately long strong hypocotyl. The parent is susceptible to but highly tolerant of loss from BCMV1.
HORSEHEAD: Bred by myself, (mostly while in Uganda), ex Diacol Nima X Cofinel. Stable high yield, Anthacnose resistance by 'Are' gene, multiple resistance to BCMV and highly tolerant / resistant to Halo Blight.
OPAL: Bred at Eyragues by a breeder of Clause S. A., in Southern France, from a back cross of the older variety Mistral with a source of the 'Are' gene. This may have been a parental line put out from INRA rather than Cornell 49-242 but detail is not available to me. Opal had many excellent attributes including BCMV resistance (genes unsure but probably protected I gene, i.e. backed up by recessives). Plant habit was excellent stiff upright with very long hypocotyl, the well defined character best associated with easy and clean harvesting.
ROYAL RED: A determinate Dark Red Kidney bean bred at Prosser, Washington State for USDA by Doug Burke which was bred for multiple disease resistance. It never became widely used, if at all, as a commercial variety having seeds rather plumper and larger than the most acceptable DRKs to European and U. S. canners. It is probably one dominant gene 'up' in the color controlling part of it genome, through having the 'Ane' allele at the 'cloudiness' (anebulosus) locus. (that I believe to be a synonym of 'D' expressed in 'rkrk').
MERVEILLE DE FRANCE (= 'LIMOUSIN'): This very old French cultivar had been maintained by a rural family in the Limousin Region of Central France where I found it and received a few seeds. It is the size of a quite large White kidney Bean but flatter and with a good dark colorfast greenness. While the provenance to M de F is strictly unsure Limousin did indeed correspond closely to the description of the obsolete cultivar. It was 100% susceptible to BCMV through seed transmission but tolerated an extraordinary level of chlorotic and mosaic symptom expression. (This also was true of many of the classic old French cultivars which we used to use as spreaders when assessing resitances in 'dirty patch' nurseries.)
MINIVERT: A purified breeding line selected from an unusually small seeded example of Chevrier Vert market beans that were highly variable, bought from the market place in Le Mans in the mid 1970's. The line retained its very small seed character but was highly susceptible to common strains of anthracnose. Its benefit lay solely in its small size. I used it in France in my joint programme with Claeys Luck to create lines of 'Pea bean verts' to try to interest the canners in novelty in the shape and size of green seeded types of dry bean.
SHAKO: A Flageolet vert variety bred in France and commercially successful at least for some years. It was screened from a large collection of FV varieties assessed by Griffaton Selection / Claeys-Luck to be used as a parent in our joint breeding programme.
ROCKET: This was a Navy Pea Bean variety developed from material originating at CIAT (ex-Rico 23) during a previous phase of my breeding endeavours in Africa. Rocket had an excellent plant habit (very erect Type 2 with a very minimal vine) and productivity but its seeds at that time were considered not to conform sufficiently closely to H. J. Heinz Ltd's exacting and restrictive specifications. The seeds were a little too small and a little too shiny and in laboratory tests were said to be insufficiently uniform in cooking quality. Rocket was assessed for several years and sites under that provisional denomination along with other material from other sources in PGRO trials. A rather similar 'Navy' bean with the same name later appeared and was marketed commercially by a well-known North American seed company.
EMERSON: A line of very 'bright' seeded flat white beans, rather large for their class, of Great Northerns, beans bred by Coyne and Schuster at University of Nebraska for 'moderate tolerance' of Xanthomonas (Common Blight) and 3 strains of the bacterial wilt pathogen Corynebacterium flaccumfaciens. Parentage was GN 1140 X PI 165078
BICO d'OURO = BRAZIL 2: A selection made in the Brazilian national bean programme under Clibas Viera's direction many years ago. I believe this was a direct selection from a N. E. Brazilian land race. Bico d'ouro was one of a widely genetically based range of cultivars entered by CIAT in far ranging international adaptation trials. In the only U. K. trial, at Woburn, in which my Horsehead, used as local check, ranked top of 40 entries. Bico d'ouro, which was an upright Type 2 indeterminate type with warm brown seeds, ranked second and its good adaptation in this environment, was extraordinary and unexpected.
Al-10-M: A Coscorron line received in 1979 from Mr Victor Alamos, bean breeder of Semillas Tuniche in Chile from an aborted programme in which he was attempting to introduce anthracnose resistance into new varieties of the this traditional important Chilean market class. This line was large seeded and with the class-typical yellow-stripes-over-white ground seeds and deep red fresh pods drying to rusty tan. The nearly fixed line was derived from a cross between a traditional (not identified) line of Coscorrons from the Chilean National collection, and the French variety Opal (see above). Al-10-M had a vigorous bushy indeterminate growth habit and matured late in Cambridge but was nevertheless not too late to be harvestable.
ZILLIS: I received this variety in the early 1970's from Oregon State University, by kindness of James Baggett. A collection of segregating material of a great range of colors obtained, I understood, by Tex Frazier and Jim Baggett from crossing two traditional pole Romano lines, Old Italian Pole Romano and Medford with Bush Blue Lake determinates. From this population, by plant to line selection, I developed after several generations a practically fixed line with the seed and pod type of the Old Italian Romano. To that line I gave the pre-name Zillis (named after a charming village in the Romansch speaking are of Switzerland). Zillis itself, despite selection for earliness and habit was too late in maturity and floppy in growth habit to meet my criteria of acceptability for use in the U. K. Thus it was used in new crosses to try to improve habit while recovering the highly desirable Romano pod characteristics.
XPR 35: This was an advanced line selection entered in adaptation trials by a commercial plant breeding station in Germany which I believe subsequently formed the basis a new variety Bina (which appeared practically identical). XPR35 had large and very fleshy pods, but not Romano type pods (being much too round and not wide enough), white seeds and a superb stiff upright determinate plant habit.
RACHEL:. A black-seeded 'filet' line 'bred' by Clause in France with technical support from INRA was made available to me by INRA Versailles as a potentially useful breeding parent in a commercial programme I ran with others in France for some years. Rachel was said to have multiple disease resistance genes introduced by 'pyramiding' and in particular combining several different anthracnose resistance genes identified in Mexican lines by INRA. The genes were sufficient to overcome the then new 'Ebnet' strain of anthracnose accidentally dispersed into European trials from a commercial breeding programme in Germany. It also had so called 'protected I gene' resistance to races of BCMV. Rachel was rather similar to and probably closely related to the commercially very successful filet-sans-fil Delinel.
EARLYRAY: This Canadian bred cultivar from Gen-Tec Seeds was by far the earliest maturing Pinto bean from North America trialled in a large nursery of potential germplasm obtained by me from many sources in N. America several years ago. There seemed then some possibility of this variety finding a market place and my Company, as agent for the breeder, tried unavailingly to achieve this. Despite earliness the cultivar had a major shortcoming, this was a degree of fleshiness of the pods and low level of structural fibre in the stems that led to the cultivar performing very badly with any degree of field re-wetting occurring during the maturation of the crop. Probably associated with this is its very high susceptibility to both Botrytis and Sclerotinia. The seed characteristics however are those of an 'ideal' pinto.
CALLIDE: A bean bred for Clause Seed Company by M. PILLET before that company's programme was discontinued. We screened a range of extra-fine podded 'French' beans and then used two (Callide and Label) in hybridisation work.
AS: Coded Green-seeded French bean bulk this material comprised a population of early generation single plant selections from a pool of material obtained by Nutting and Speed from NPI Seeds of the USA. With permission to use for study and hybridisation in the NS bean breeding programme I acquired this material as part of a deal on the dissolution of N & S.
VERITY: This is a straight selection from the N & S bulk and was used during its re-selection years as a seed parent. The parentage of the AS lines was not disclosed but clearly relates to the work with the 'persistent green' trait developed by the famous breeder Bill Dean.
STOP: (Brazil 2 (Bico d Ouro ) X Royal Red) Red seeded. This new red bean is an important novelty combining as it does the smaller size and more oval shape associated with Navy beans with the strong and colorfast red color of red kidney beans.
Stop has a plant type that is a short and compact bush habit and holds its many pods throughout the plant well clear of the ground as the plant matures. Its plant habit is thus similar to that of modern French flageolet vert varieties and quite dissimilar from the classic more rangy American red kidney beans. It responds well to quite high density sowing and to early harvesting and drying before threshing as in the case of modern commercial bean harvesting with 'rodders'. In the garden situation it is easy to hang up to dry in an airy shed or greenhouse from late August to mid-September from a late May sowing.
Stop beans can be used, and look very well, in food products requiring a colorfast red bean such as in red bean or mixed bean salads and in dishes such as Chilli beans (Chilli-con-carne with meat and chilli-sin-carne as a vegetarian alternative). Whereas standard Red Kidney's are well known as having high levels of lectin anti-nutritional factor, Stop (subject to confirmation) appears to have only about half their level, however Stop as with all Dry Beans still needs careful preparation as a good food.
Stop's skin is thinner than that of standard red kidneys and is less liable to break apart in cooking (or canning). It has normal digestive properties (and a claim elsewhere (Cook et al 2000) that they are similar to Prim in that respect is based on a mis-understanding.) Stop is registered on the French and European catalogues with FRASEM as the sole approved Maintainer and myself (through Peas & Beans Ltd) as the Breeder. It has been in farm scale crop alternative demonstrations in the U. K. in the Summer of 2000.
PRIM: A yellow-seeded Manteca bean (Swedish Brown X Opal). Matecas are a Chilean market class, which together with Coscorrones are esteemed for their 'gaslessness'. My Prim Manteca beans were bred entirely without the use of Chilean material but to emulate the Chilean beans in seed / organoleptic characteristics. They are exceedingly interesting as food beans having a quite excellent flavor, lack of astringency (sensed as sweetness') and in physiological and replicated tests provoking no more flatulence than muesli or any other normal (non-bean) grain crop. The beans are pale yellow and ovalish round and about the size of a large Navy bean. The seeds however have a pale bluish and not very obvious corona ring, which makes them rather distinctive.
The plants flower and mature very early compared with most other beans but similarly early to Prim are Horsehead, Generatif and Montblanc also from my breeding programme. My Dordogne is an earlier introduction. The pods of Prim are quite unsuitable as a green vegetable having strong string and parchment and a rather pale green color.
The variety has been grown in commercial / industrial scale trials in France and test marketed for food acceptability on a small scale in glass-bottled format in Supermarkets as 'Haricots non-flatulent'. I call the beans 'social beans' and am confident that they are relatively wind free but prefer to make a strong and easily measurable claim for their lack of seed coat tannin that is very well known in many plant foods to be associated with better digestibility.
Prim has been bred from a cross between two European lines containing all the necessary genes. We have been able to recombine these genes by adopting stringent selection and traditional 'Mendelian' breeding methods. Concluding successful adaptation trials I propose to submit this variety for registration.
The Coscorron beans of Chile are the most famous for their high digestibility and were exhibited at the Great Paris Exposition more than a century ago as 'haricots non-venteuses' or non windy beans! My new range of Coscorrons are bred by making a cross between a late maturing, and spreading Chilean breeding line 'Al-10-M' and my own Prim bean. Thus we obtain the same red pod color and yellow and white patterned seeds of the traditional Coscorrons but with a greatly improved earliness and plant habit.
Coscorron beans are traditionally used at the 'yellow-ripe' stage when the beans are full size but still very fleshy and shelled from their pods just like garden peas or as Borlotti beans are most popularly used in Italy. The dried seeds can also be used as haricots. On cooking the yellow pigment is dispersed and changes to a pleasant very pale flesh color in the cooked beans which is more attractive than the greyish-white of many white beans.
I have developed a range of varieties with different seed shapes and differences in maturity and of plant type although all are determinate and early maturing bush or dwarf varieties. The following are the code of pre-names for practically fixed lines from this family.
IMPERIAL: has very dark red pods and large kidney shaped seeds. It has been grown for adaptational and market assessment purposes in Jersey in 1998 and 1999 with promising results in terms of market acceptability. Its seeds are apparently fragile and viability is rapidly lost and the seed particularly liable to damage by anything but the most gentle handling. Plant habit and apparent potential yield are excellent.
PRECIOUS: has yellow and white mottled seeds not much larger than Navy beans and the pods are fairly short. Yield is high as a dry bean and this variety is envisaged as a successor or back up to Prim. Manteca beans for use as a high digestible pulse crop and can be used in baby foods etc. on account of their favorable seed chemistry. Physiological tests, though on a more limited scale than those conducted with Prim indicate high digestibility and freedom from windiness.
VICTOR: is intermediate in seed size between Imperial and Precious and has also performed well in trials. It reached 'purity' relatively early and has hence been multiplied as a Breeders' Seed stock earlier than other Coscorrons.
COCO COSCORRON (COCOS might be a suggested name): This is another Coscorron with seeds that are nearly round resembling small white Coco beans (such as Coquette and Plusgus) but smaller in size and with the class seed characteristic of yellow mottling on a white background.
GEEWIZZ: A tentative name for our new Coscorron with seeds shaped like a typical Great Northern bean with seeds that are yellow mottled on a white background.
GOGO and JALOUSIE: The French Flageolets verts were originally selected from a mutant white-seeded bean more than 100 years ago by M. Chevrier or Arpajon near Paris. They remain green by having 'lost' the enzyme chlorophyll oxidase which in normal beans destroys the chlorophyll as maturity and senescence approach. The Mendelian genetic trait for this loss is a simple recessive but subject to some modifiers. Thus it is possible to combine green-seededness of what the French still consider typical flageolets verts. Sometimes, still, all such varieties of which many have been bred are still, incorrectly, called 'Chevrier vert'. That was only the correct name of the original green flageolet long superseded by improvements bred by many plant breeders.
I have long been interested in recombining the characteristic green color, which also gives a particular 'green bean' associated with the chlorophyll persistence, (homozygosity in the pc gene for persistent chlorophyll) with other traits, and particularly with maturity, and seed size and shape. I have worked with others on green seeded beans in France and several varieties of standard flageolet vert from France were released via Claeys-Luck / Griffaton Selection through other seed houses from that programme. From this programme I have obtained Gogo (a green pea bean) and Jalousie.
GOGO: (from either Minivert X Coquette or Shakro X Rocket). It has performed well and its green seeds are similar in size to a standard Navy pea bean. It has an excellent erect bush habit and high density of podding. We have not yet made any attempt to develop it commercially but along with Stop and Prim it could be introduced in an interesting marketing programme as the way Ahead in beans . Its green color however is not as intense as that of the best flageolet vert varieties (such as Vernel of Vilmorin).
The uncertainly surrounding the family from which this variety arises is due to a serious harvesting error by which the provenance in the field of a number of lines was accidentally lost.
JALOUSIE: (Limousin X Horsehead) This is a full sized Green Kidney Bean bred from Limousin a very attractive late maturing variety unsuitable for the U.K. I believe it has significant market potential in the U.S.A. where standard Red Kidney's are grown which are look a likes in size but totally contrasting in color. It was trialled in Hungary by Stephen Eke and farming associates in Transylvania and produced very good reports of yield and acceptibility but the variety was then said to have become lost. I would like to see it developed by my associates before it emerges as somebody else's 'discovery' for U.K. and even Jersey conditions, however, it is in my opinion, substantially too late maturing.
VERITY: is a green seeded green pod (dual-purpose) vegetable variety (see below). Its long thin green seeds are veritable flageolets (meaning little flute) and conform much more closely to this image than most modern so called flageolets verts. It is not from my original crossing programme but is developed from highly segregating early generation bean material distributed in the late 1980's from a breeding programme that was being discontinued in the USA and from which we were asked to assess the potential. The material proved to be rather unusually unstable (difficult to purify over many generations of single plant selection), probably due to its resulting from 'wide' crossing. Verity is a line I consider valuable and which might be possibly registered and marketed, Any residue of seed beyond that needed for green bean seed provides an excellent quality flageolet vert grain. I would not personally claim or seek to claim breeder's rights on this material, however, I have carried out a considerable amount of work on it. If the line is useful I would wish to acknowledge its original American source and its proper acquisition by Nutting and Speed of Longstanton and thence to me when that company closed.
WHITE ALUBIA BEANS (SIMILAR TO CANELLINIS)
MONTBLANC is an early maturing stiff erect determinate Alubia bean of high yield potential. It is bred from ((Coquette X Survival F4) X Horsehead).
This market class of Alubia beans has barrel shaped or straight-sided seeds rather than kidney form and a plump shape rather than the flattened form of the Great Northern beans. Alubias have not traditionally been produced in the U.S.A. but are being developed following the success of the marketing Alubias to Europe from Argentina. Years ago when working in France I saw the opportunity to develop early maturing upright cultivars for Northern European conditions and suitable in the same markets. Alubias are imported into France on a very large scale. The Alubias are rather similar to the Italian Canellinis, which however have longer seed and usually thicker skins.
MONTBLANC is a retained selection from a handful of four or five rather similar advanced selections purified by myself by 1988. Whiteknight was a close sister line, which could barely be distinguished from Montblanc so I merged these. Montblanc is very substantially earlier in maturity than a new Alubias developed in Michigan State University with which it was compared in trial in Girton in 1998.
Alubias are very widely used in France as 'Haricot blanc sec' or white dry beans being greatly preferred by French cooks and processors over the navy pea beans used for British baked beans. They are a softer seeded (when cooked) an alternative to Great Northerns but being softer tends to break up more on cooking.
GREAT NORTHERN VARIETIES.
These flat shaped medium sized white beans are of ancient cultivation in the South Western United States by Hindatsa Indians. They are in most respects other than seed color similar to Pinto and Californian pink beans also from the American South West.. They are extensively grown in the Pan-handle area of Nebraska and are a major item of commerce and much supplied from Nebraska as a contribution to World Food Aid under the Public Law 480 programme. French canning companies adopted Great Northerns as a market standard when commercial canned beans suddenly became a serious supermarket product in France in the 1970's and no suitable French varieties existed. Nebraska adapted varieties tend to be late maturing and long straggling viney plants.
GENERATIF: This variety was developed by me by crossing a Great Northern variety Emerson from the University of Nebraska with Horsehead. This was a very 'wide' cross and recovery of the correct combination of GN seed type with a fully determinate plant type was difficult, Generatif is probably still unique in this respect. When the plant matures its pods tend to 'flop' to near the ground and for this reason it is best suited to early harvest by bean 'rodders' and wind-rowing technology rather than leaving the plants until later to mature fully in the field. Hanging up 'early-pulled' plants in the shed or tunnel or greenhouse is a good option for gardeners.
CASA: This has a different pedigree altogether, entirely French parents, crossed in the UK (Opal X Rachel). It is been very high yielding in trials and has a seed shape quite similar to Great Northerns but probably, for the discriminating buyer outside the norms of that class. Nevertheless it has an excellent erect determinate plant type and will make a very productive variety for the amateur gardener wanting a good winter supply of attractive dry white beans to use in the kitchen. It can safely be left standing outside until a much later stage of maturity than Generatif without any risk of spoilage by pods being too near the soil. The organoleptic quality of the cooked beans is however not as attractive to my palate as either Montblanc or Generatif.
OPERA: Bred from the same family as Casa it is rather similar to Casa but its seeds are like small Alubias being much rounder in form. Yield and use would be similar to Casa.
DORDOGNE: Bred from the same family as Casa (but perhaps from a chance outcross of an early generation heterozygote with pollen from a flageolet vert). It is a very unusually early dwarf with very faintly greenish white seeds and deep purple-mottled pods. It is a most strikingly 'different' variety and is good to eat.
COCO BLANC VARIETIES
These have medium to large nerly spherical white seeds that are larger than any Navy beans and are really very different in culinary use as well as in appearance. The French, in many regions of that Country of diverse regional specialities have long appreciated these types of beans especially in the Midi (Coco blanc (climbing and Coco nain blanc (dwarf) subclasses) and in Brittany (Coco paimpolais with red pods) where these now have a controlled appellation.
COQUETTE: This variety is on the French catalogue.Its breeding status is 'Co-obtention' between the French company Griffaton Selection, now GNSemences and myself).
This excellent disease resistant improvement of the Coco nain blanc germplasm bean arose from crosses made at INRA Versailles in the 1960's. Early generation seed of three populations were supplied to me when I was disease resistance breeding in Africa, for use as potential breeding parents. One of these COCO-R No 2, still in substantial segregation was used as a parent to supply the anthracnose resistant gene 'are' to an improved background. I also continued the re-selection of COCO R No2 through many generations of selfing and from this was able to assess Coquette as a new variety while working with Griffaton. I was permitted by the original breeder, Hubert Bannerot, who was responsible for the initial crosses and who supplied me with seed seed to put this new variety into French registration. I carried out all the all the selection work over many generations and Griffaton handled the Registration paper work. Under existing arrangements, I am entitled to maintain and handle the variety in anglophone countries, GNS in Francophone.
PLUSGUS: This more recently bred early maturing Romano (Green pod vegetable) bean. In addition to its production of superb quality edible pods in great profusion its dry seeds are nearly indistinguishable from those of Coquette and can be similarly used. However, at present, while the use as a Romano is under active development all good quality residual dry beans are retained and recycled as seed. There will come a time when it dual purpose use for dry grain as well as green pods will be very practical.
GREEN POD VEGETABLE VARIETIES
VERITY: Fine French BEANS with dark green pods (see above dual purpose).
PLUSGUS (Zillis X XPR35).
Plusgus Romano beans are of simply superb eating quality and productivity. Their wide but not excessively long stringless and parchmentless pods carried well clear of the ground avoiding staining and soil borne rots and are available from the same sowing date as much as ten days sooner than rival American varieties. Only about 49 days are required to green pod cropping. The variety was the subject of an agreement for its development with Royal Sluis that was unilaterally breached when that company was taken over. It had half passed a registration programme in Europe (managed through RS) before being withdrawn and had been very highly appreciated in Farm experimental production (under RS) in the USA. The variety has continued in evaluation trials in several locations with Breeders' Seed provided by myself. It has received warm appreciation both in consumer tests by myself and by a Packhouse which has shown it to its potential customers.