Witsa, Pole/Snap, 2021 – This is the REAL Witsa. I will start off by saying that most of the beans being sold out there as Witsa are not Witsa. There is not a second bean coincidentally named Witsa either. They are entirely the wrong bean which has been misnamed. There is a garble of information and much crisscrossing of misinformation attending some of these listings. Adding to the confusion is that most are listed as a Runner bean, but this is a Common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris. This may be a cultural difference by country in which they mean a Runner bean to be a Pole bean, not P. coccineus as we know a Runner bean to be.
The true Witsa bean is a South African bean developed in 1951 from a cross between Green Savage and St. Louis Perfection. It is a very long, tender podded, STRINGLESS!! bean with good disease resistance and outstanding productivity. I suspect it failed to take off commercially because it is so very tender and would not hold up well to shipping and commercial processing. The other bean being sold out there is a shorter, flat-podded bean. It may be a nice bean itself, but it is not Witsa.
The most accurate and detailed information on its history can be found here
in a PDF image of an old South African market bulletin from June 1966: https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00148490_3532
As a home
gardener who loves to can and put up lots of good food for my family for the
winter, Witsa is a dream. This bean will not waste space in your garden or your
time in the kitchen! The pods average 8 inches long, with 9-10 seeds per pod.
They remain super tender and go through a puffy stage as the seeds fill out in the
pod. The dry pods are so tender they are easy to shell and crumble in your
hands. The plants are vigorous climbers and the blooms are white. It is one of
the most productive beans I’ve seen to date. It had an initial large flush around
65 days from planting, the vines remained disease-free and healthy, and it gave
me a second large flush in late September. It kept going right up until our
season ended.
I acquired seed for this bean in 2014 from a California bean collector named Marshall Smyth, but I didn’t end up growing it out until 2018. I had only a few seeds and got poor germination, so with just a couple of plants I mostly focused on increasing the seed and didn’t pay it much attention to assess its qualities at the time. I had a good dozen or more plants come up from the newer seed this year. We ate so well from this bean! And I have a good supply of 2021 seed for it now.
You can order this seed in the U.S. here www.TheSeedstead.com
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, but this is what my post is about. Many being sold as Witsa are not the same bean at all. The inaccurate bean is sold in a few places online. If you take a look at the .pdf file that I have linked above, it is to an archived June 1966 article with pictures and a detailed description of the pods. You will see that those sold at the website you list above are shorter and are a flat, Romano-type pod instead. I got my sample from a seed saver in CA in 2014. He got it from a mutual friend who imported it from another seed saver in S. Africa in 2013. More info can be found here: https://www.abeancollectorswindow.com/networkpage10.html
DeleteI know this is an old post but wondering if you have a source for buying authentic Witsa bean seeds? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI have fresh seed from Witsa I grew this year. Mine can be sourced back to a seed saving friend who imported them from S. Africa in 2013. He also may have some available. More info can be found here: https://www.abeancollectorswindow.com/networkpage10.html
Delete