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The Cunning Farmer's avatar

By way of coincidence someone just gave me a couple of hundred seeds. I love hyacinth beans as an ornamental, but I’ve never eaten them for some reason. I hear they are potent nitrogen fixers as well.

Lev's avatar

I wonder if emasculation by boiling water or something similar would spare the female parts or not

Shane's avatar

I read a paper that trialed hot water emasculation on Chenopodium, but even they found it unreliable despite the tiny flowers and went back to physical removal of male flowers before maturity.

Walter Haugen's avatar

Very good article. The mechanics of hand pollination may seem daunting to the casual observer, but it may prompt more people to do their own research on landraces. I have been doing landrace research for 30 years and don't hand pollinate, but my research program has different objectives. Keep up the good work!