Terry, peas may tolerate soaking for 24 hours but it will kill many beans. I have not grown popbeans or other kinds of garbanzos. I have done a lot of experiments with pre-sprouting beans though. With many kinds of beans, even soaking for 8 hours will damage the cotyledons and cause them to crack. Most beans can tolerate 4 hours of soaking but for some, one hour in the limit.

If you have plenty of seed, you could put a few seeds in labeled jars with something similar to cheesecloth fastened over the openings. Soak the popbeans in each jar for varying amounts of time. Then pour off the water and rinse and drain a few times a day. You should be able to learn what will work. Plant them out when you see small roots.

Or, you can plant them in a tray of seed starting mix and plant them out when they sprout.

The end of April is near the latest frost date in some parts of Oregon. - Dick

Like Drloyd, I'm not a fan of pre-soaking any legumes unless they are hard seeds. There are several potential problems I see with the procedure:

(1) If there are disease pathogens present on any of the seed (such as one dead seed) there is the potential of infecting all of the seed in the batch. This could account for zero germination.
(2) Handling wet seeds with your hands can likewise spread pathogens from seed to seed.
(3) Just a theory of mine, with no proof yet behind it... but if beans initially release chemicals into the soil which protect them from disease organisms, then that protection is lost by pre-soaking.

When I start beans as transplants, I use sterile soil less mix & peat pots, plant the seeds, soak the pots over-night in a tray, then pour off all excess water from the tray in the morning. Then they go into a heated location (about 75 F. degrees) until germination. This process has a very high success rate, often 100%.

I grow one of the popping chickpeas from the USDA (PI 374085) that Carol used to breed "Hannan". One year it warmed early, and I was able to direct seed them in April; but most years, I start them in May as transplants. My observation is that just because a seed "tolerates" cool soil, doesn't mean it will germinate quickly - or grow quickly - under those conditions. IMO, the plants get a quicker start as transplants.

Regardless of the method used, Terry, you will want to get the plants into the ground as early as possible. If you have late summer rains (as I do) it can destroy much of whatever seed is ripening at the time. The pods are very thin, and offer little protection from moisture... dry or nearly-dry seed exposed to rain (or overhead irrigation) will rot or sprout. Planting early gives you a chance to harvest some seed during the drier days of mid-summer.

BTW, if you haven't already tried popbeans, don't envision them popping like popcorn. That's not what they do. They pop enough to become soft(er) & crunchy, as opposed to remaining hard enough to break a tooth. Pretty good flavor, though.

Zeedman

Thank you for the info on germinating bean seeds... I will be ordering some Hannan primarily because of the popping.. Is this the only variety that 'pops'??

Thank you, Dick and Zeedman, for your valuable feedback. I'm following your advice and have soaked some seeds 2 hrs then rinsed/drained for 2 days. Some others I soaked 4 hrs then rinsed/drained for 2 days (these ones got just the tips of the sprout showing up). Then I planted both sets along with some unsoaked/unrinsed ones in a third bed. I'll let you all know how they compare in a few weeks.

Vegpatch, Hannan is the only bean/pea that I know of that pops. What's nice is that as well as being an easy snack, it's also a great garbanzo for salads, cooking, and hummus.

... Is this the only variety that 'pops'??"

Carol Deppe reported in her book "Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties" that most small chickpeas (the size of raw popcorn or smaller) will pop, but that few larger chickpeas pop reliably. "Reliably" is important, if you value your teeth. ;-) Those small varieties are difficult to find here, outside of the USDA's collection.

She noted two large(r) types that popped reliably; the black & brown PI 374085, and the orange-brown PI 374090. Carol mentioned that the latter didn't do well under her conditions, so she focused on improving PI 374085.

The curator at the USDA who sent Carol chickpeas for her trials was a Mr. Hannan... which is the name of Carol's popping chickpea. Coincidence? ;-)

Here are the results of the germination tests in my May 5th 2014 message above. The seeds with no presoaking had about 75% germination, while those with 2 hrs and 4 hrs presoaking (followed by 24 hrs of rinsing/draining/rinsing every 4 hrs or so) had about 90% germination. I'll probably presoak 2-4 hrs in future years, but I'd guess that it's even more important to have the right moisture level once in the ground.
...Terry

I would like to live in a place where I could simply plant dry seed on May 1 and the soil would be at least 65 F and the seeds would sprout and grow like crazy. Alas, here south of Seattle, planting dry seed may not work until July. So I have to sprout or start all of my seed in peat pots for a June 1 planting. Beans will grow in weather in which they will not sprout.

This year I sprouted some larger bean seeds in jars but all the small beans were started in plastic pots. Seeds were soaked in freshly mixed 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes and rinsed. An inch of potting mix was placed in the bottom of the pot to keep the seeds from any puddling in the bottom of the pot. Then a sprinkle of seeds. Another half inch of potting mix and then another sprinkle of seeds and so on. They were watered from above to keep the soil damp. Germination was near 100% in 48 hours.