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Phaseolus vulgaris
Also called French Bean, Common Bean, Bean, Bush Bean, Garden Bean, Green Bean, Pole Bean
Phaseolus vulgaris, the common or kidney bean, is a fast-growing annual legume grown for its edible pods and dry seeds. It is sown after frost, grown as a bush or climbing type, and needs warmth and consistent moisture.
Phaseolus vulgaris, the common bean, is a herbaceous annual plant. Its botanical classification, along with other Phaseolus species, is as a member of the legume family, Fabaceae. It forms a green-leaved vine which produces beans inside of pods.
All wild members of the species have a climbing habit, but many cultivars are classified either as bush beans or climbing beans, depending on their style of growth. In 2022, 28 million tonnes of dry common beans were produced worldwide, led by India with 23% of the total.
Good commercial yield in favorable environments under irrigation is 5 to 7 tonnes per hectare (2 to 3 short ton/acre) fresh and 1.4 to 1.8 t/ha (0.6 to 0.8 short ton/acre) dry seed.
The toxic compound phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is present in many common bean varieties but is especially concentrated in red kidney beans. White kidney beans contain about a third as much phytohaemagglutinin as the red variety; broad beans (Vicia faba) contain 5–10% of the amount that red kidney beans contain.
Phytohaemagglutinin can be inactivated by a two-step process. The United States Food and Drug Administration recommends soaking the dry beans for at least five hours in water, which should then be discarded; this first step is largely for reducing indigestible carbohydrates. Then boiling the hydrated (wet, soft) beans for 30 minutes to ensure they reach a sufficient temperature for long enough to destroy the toxin completely.
Wild P. vulgaris is native to the Americas. It was domesticated separately in Mesoamerica and in the southern Andes region some 8000years ago, giving the domesticated bean two gene pools.
Tepary bean · Slimleaf bean · Scarlet runner · Year Bean · Slimjim bean · Phaseolus glabellus · Gray's Bean · Bean · Lima bean · Spotted bean · Few Flowered Bean · Thicket bean
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phaseolus vulgaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
