this past spring there was a question
if edamame soybeans were as productive as
regular soybeans.

i'd not grown edamame soybeans here
before so i could not say for sure. now
after the season is getting close to
being finished i can at least report
some of the results.

we had a pretty good bout of rain and
floods right when the soybeans were first
flowering. many of those pods shrivelled
up and fell off. we also had another severe
rain storm that interrupted flowering again.
still there is a nice crop of pods on the
plants. not exactly comparable to previous
soybean years for me, but i think the plants
would have a comparable yield if we had a
more normal season.

the plantings were in four patches. two
of the patches are sandy soil with gravel
underneath (excellent drainage). the other
two patches were clay or heavy soil (poor
drainage). in all cases they grew well
enough to produce. the smallest plants are
in the spot where the soil is compacted the
most and the lowest area that flooded.

so all told, after this kind of a
challenging season this is a crop that is
about as bullet proof as i can ask for. and
the nice thing is that Ma likes them too.

i'll be interested to see how they finish
up.


songbird

songbird wrote:

this past spring there was a question
if edamame soybeans were as productive as
regular soybeans.
....
i'll be interested to see how they finish
up.

still drying the latest round of edamame
soybeans for seed, but the greenies are done
for the season. a hard frost two nights ago
finished off the plants.

from a 2oz package of seeds (about 70 seeds
i think it was) we had one batch of greenies
several weeks ago and then yesterday i picked
what were left of them all. the green ones i
sorted out and then weighed them at 3lbs,
boiled them and then shelled them out for 21oz
of edible results.

the dry ones will be a while yet before i
shell those and weigh them out, but i do have
7oz already shelled and dried from a few weeks
ago.

the boiled green shells are already making
some worms very happy. it's not often they
get cooked greens.

the plants i pulled up to inspect the roots
for nitrogen forming nodules were all loaded
so as i suspected we have a good population of
those bacteria in the soil here. some roots
went down a good 18 inches for the larger plants
in sandy soil. the smaller plants in clay barely
made it down 4 inches. funny to see a tiny plant
of 12 inches loaded with enough pods that you
can't see the stem.

the habit of the plants in growth was about
the same as any of the previous soybean crops
i've grown with one difference. the pods on
these can get heavy enough to collapse and
break branches from the plant.


songbird