2. Advanced lines

Red-mottled kidney - ex Diacol Nima X Cofinel. Released more than 20 years ago but still a garden favorite for many. It has very early maturity and stiff upright growth. Horsehead was

an outstanding as a performer in both PGRO trials and in an International trial of CIAT materials grown by Rothamsted Research Station. The dry red-purplish mottled seeds are excellent when properly prepared by soaking and cooking, as a natural protein addition to casseroles etc. or as a basis for many vegetarian recipes. The young pods can be used as well as a "French bean" but for this use must be picked very young and we don't really suggest this usage for Horsehead beans. Unwins sold Horsehead for several years but after that it was taken up by Chase Organics who have catalogued and sold it ever since. Seed used by the packet trade since the end of U

nwins' operation has been only Breeders' seed supplied from Dr Leakey's own productions at a price inclusive of royalty. Horsehead has been on the British and European catalogues for more than 25 years and I am the sole maintainer. It has been a regular item in the UK packet trade and is well known to gardeners.

('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 greenho

use 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.

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 th

e s

ize 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 Dordogn

e 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 gene

s by adopting stringent selection and traditional 'Mendelian' breeding methods. Concluding successful adaptation trials I propose to submit this variety for registration.