VELVET Beans of a Bush Variety Developed With Distinguishable Seed

The original bush or bunch variety of velvet beans was first developed as a sport from the Alabama variety in 1914. The plant differed from all other cultivated varieties in being nontwining—that is, bush or bunch in habit. Unfortunately, the nearly spherical and grayish seeds marbled with brown were identical with the seed of the most widely grown twining varieties—the Georgia, the Alabama and the Florida.

In its place of origin it became abundantly established and soon replaced the other varieties. Its advantages were that it did not twine on the corn and therefore did not pull down the stalks, as was common with the twining sorts. It was found especially valuable as a green-manure crop in orange and other groves, where any variety that climbs the trees is decidedly objectionable, particularly while the trees are young. As a hay crop it has a particular advantage because the absence of twining stems does away with the common difficulty in mowing ordinary velvet beans, which make a tangled mass of vines. The principal objections to the bush variety are that the pods can not be gathered as rapidly as those of the twining varieties, and they lie so close to the ground that they become water-soaked in wet weather, causing many of them to decay.

With such advantages over the twining sorts, the demand greatly exceeded the supply of seed. With resulting high prices, unscrupulous growers and dealers took advantage of the similarity of seed of the twining and bush varieties and substituted cheaper seed of the former wholly or in part for the latter. This practice soon caused reliable seedsmen to refuse to handle the bush variety, with the result that at the present time it has practically disappeared from the market.

Realizing the value of a bush variety of velvet beans, the United States Department of Agriculture attempted through selection and hybridization to develop bush varieties with seed easily distinguishable from that of twining sorts. Several very promising bush and semi-bush types have resulted from hybridizing black and gray colored varieties with the bush variety. Seeds of these types vary in color from gray to gray speckled with black, and there is also considerable variation in shape and size of the seed. All are quite distinct in color, shape, and size from the seed of the vining varieties. One of the most promising new types (fig. 231) is a sport with ash-colored seeds, selected from the original bush variety and, except for color of seed, identical with that variety. The department has no seed for distribution at the present time.

With seed easily distinguishable from the twining varieties, thereby eliminating the element of fraud, it is hoped that the new types of the bush variety will achieve the wide popularity which the bush variety previously held, and that they may become highly useful and particularly valuable for the special purposes indicated.