"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Bertie Doe wrote:
I grew this variety of french climbers for the first time. They taste
good -
fresh or frozen.
Strangely, half the plants have produced flat beans with a wavy edge. The
remainder are the rounded type.
The seed packet is Fothergills', generic style with no pics. Is this
usual
for B.Lake? TIA

My guess is that they were grown too close to a variety like Barlotta,
the originals are homozygous, and the blue colour and flat shape are
independent, dominant alleles.

Indeed.

quote

Isolation Requirements. [French]Bean flowers are principally
self-pollinated. Natural crossing however, is more common than peas,
and the extend of cross pollination may vary from two to eight per cent.
The seed field must be isolated from fields of other varieties, and the
same variety not conforming to varietal purity requirements by at least
ten metres for foundation seed production and five metres for certified
seed production.

http://www.seedtamilnadu.com/nfrenchbean.htm

/quote

Given that they're largely self pollinating, I wouldn't have believed
that myself, without checking it out. Isn't the "Interweb" wonderful !

Also you're not the only person who assumed that Blue Lake produce
purple beans, rather than green ones. With their being small and pencil
shaped I never tried them myself and so I made the same mistake. I had
mixed flat and pencil shaped Mont D'Or, bright yellow semi climbers
a few years back from the one packet from Marshalls. However I'd also
had plenty saved from previous years and so used those instead the
next year.


michael adams



If that is the case, growing seeds from the odd beans would produce
a mixture of round blue beans, flat blue beans, round green beans
and flat green beans.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.