I am looking for the correct name of a 'native' bean grown in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It considered to be a cross between a fava bean (broad bean) and something else and is only grown in this region.

Robert,

The Abruzzo region is certainly noted for fava bean cuisine, but I can't find out anything at all about a possible crossed variety grown there and I would assume that such info is hard to find.

My only suggestion, if you don't know anyone in Italy in that region, is to contact Bill McKay at the website Grow Italian and see if he knows anyone in that area who could help.

Fava beans are self pollinating but the blsooms are large, and insects are known to be responsible for some X pollination.

Carolyn

The crazy season has arrived for me, so I don't have much leisure time to poke around on the web, and I only saw this this morning (taking a day off to get ready for Patriot Sunday).

In any case, I don't see how you can have a cross between a fava & another bean; favas are a completely different species from regular pole/bush beans.

The problem with finding 'local varieties' is that in ITaly, as here, the big seed companies tend to sell what is popular and the little local seed companies are going out of business; they have a hard time meeting EU rules.

I have never heard of a fava specific to abruzzo, but there may be one. Pretty much all you see for favas in Italy these days are superaquadulce, supersimonia, cascine, valencia & a few from morocco.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no seed company based in abruzzo.

You can poke around yourself. If you go to seedquest.com and click on 'white pages' it will take you to listings of seed companies all over the world. Click on Italy and poke around the listings. Not all that many Italian seed companies have web sites and the good sites are few and far between, but you may get lucky.

Good luck

Bill McKay