I sowed broad (fava) bean / bondebønner (Vicia faba) seed indoors yesterday as there’s still snow where I’d planned to put them outside. In addition to my late broad bean grex with a mix of colours, I thought it would also be worthwhile to start developing a local early variety which could also potentially be useful in more marginal areas such as North Norway and mountain areas. I’m starting with 4 early varieties, two from IPK Gatersleben: 1) Expresse Zeer Vroege Witkiem (meaning “very early white germ (seed)” (FAB424), Express (FAB 7066), my own selection of the commercial variety Express which I’ve grown as my early sort for some years and another purportedly early variety De Monica from Chiltern Seeds. I’ll select mainly for earliness and seed size.
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Would field beans perform better in Norway than the more highly-bred broad beans? Apart from smaller pods, and fewer seeds per pod, they seem better in some ways than broad beans. They seem to be more robust and to crop more heavily, for a start.
Yes, that’s worth exploring too although my own experience with growing heirlooms such as the Martock Bean and Scandinavian heirlooms from Sweden, Finland and the Baltic States hasn’t shown particularly good yields. However, small seeded varieties are still grown here as animal feed, so I guess there is a good reason for that!