Black beans, sometimes called black turtle beans, are hugely popular in Latin American and with fans of cajun and creole cuisines. From salads to rice, burritos and fajitas, demand for the small, shiny bean is creating opportunities for bean growers across Canada.
On this episode of the RealAgriculture Edible Bean School, host Bernard Tobin looks at how the black bean, which at one time was predominately grown in New York state, is now found in fields in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario.
Hensall Co-op’s origination manager Wade Bickell says major black bean production is now found in Michigan and North Dakota and with help from plant breeders, the crop has now evolved into a good fit for Canadian growing regions.
Production challenges in Mexico in 2023 also present opportunities for northern growers, adds Bickell. “They’ve had a production problem in 2023. And I think that that’s going to carry over into this 2024 crop. And demand for black beans is increasing in North America and around the world.”
In the video, Hensall field marketer Dave Louwagie also shares black bean agronomy and production advice for growers. He discusses the importance of fine-tuning planting populations and row spacings; and how variable rate seeding can help control disease and seed costs.
Louwagie addresses the need for black beans, and all edible classes, to be planted into warmer soils and why growers need to keep an eye on the forecast before starting planting. There’s tips for weed control and the need to control white mould as well as harvest insights on crop desiccation and how proper combine settings can enhance crop quality.
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The edible Bean school on real agriculture.com is brought to you by Hensel Co-op hi I’m burner TOA welcome to the edible Bean school today I’m at the Hensel Co-op processing plant where we’re going to talk about black beans a class of beans that are grown across North America across Canada and certainly in Ontario I’ll be joined later in the show by Hensel field
Marketer Dave Luigi to discuss agronomics and crop management tips but we’ll kick things off with Hensel co-op’s origination manager Wade ble for a look at the black bean market now Wade let’s start with the name now we call them black beans but in many parts of the world it’s a little different I
Think the the name started out as black turtles initially so most people call them black beans in North America but I think the proper name is black turtle beans now what are the major markets the main markets for black beans you know globally where are they I think I think
The the most consumption is in that uh Mexico Central America um but you know there’s regions in in here in North America Canada that the the consumption of black beans is steadily increasing as well as in Europe now I love black beans in my burrito sure where do they fit in
The diet and and on the menu yeah so it’s it’s it’s a salad Bean it’s beans and rice but boy there’s you know there’s a good good good place for black beans in a burrito too yeah so let’s talk about Bean production in North America where are they grown uh what’s
The landscape like so initially you know black beads were mainly grown in New York state and in uh and and have evolved into the major production areas being Michigan and now North Dakota but you know the varieties nowadays they can fit them into Alberta Manitoba and certainly Lots growing here in Ontario
As well yeah so how was it changed though how was how’s the bean evolved and from a from a Grower’s perspective wa yeah so you know many years ago all these beans that we grew were a bush type bean and now they’ve grown into they’ve bred you know uprightness and
Direct Harvest they really easy Bean to harvest as far as a grower is concerned now um Hensel moves a lot of beans a lot of different classes why do you tell Growers about the opportunities for black beans right now uh the opportunity is there for um Hensel Co-op Growers and
The Hansel Co-op to Market more beans into Mexico they’ve had a production problem in 2023 and I think that that’s going to carry over into this 2024 crop and demand for black beans is increasing in North America and around the world we’re now going to talk Agronomy with
Dave Luigi Dave let’s start with planting populations um you know there’s a couple of schools of thought here on black bean what do we need to think about we got to think of a few things here obviously for planting populations one is row width and generally speaking
As you narrow your row width you bump up your population a little bit uh number two is your so conditions at planting time and the weather that’s to follow afterwards if we kind of get uh some cool weather and conditions aren’t ideal you want you may want to bump that
Population up over a little bit uh three is the production capacity of the of the soil or the um the Zone um there again when we uh bump up the population bump up population in the poorer yielding zones and lower the population in the uh in the high
Production areas and and and the last item uh is to manage disease particularly white mold yeah we’ll talk about that in a second um what about variable rate planting are black beans a good candidate for that absolutely they are um as as any class of dry bean is uh
Your Roi is the best on on dry beans so um couple reasons for that is we’re able to reduce our our planting population so we save ourselves some money on seed at the same time we’re managing disease it’s a strategy to control disease particularly white mold and um we’re
Maintaining yields and and in fact we’re increasing yields by variable rate populations let’s talk about planting date and planting conditions and you know and what we’re putting that seed into y ideally this part of Ontario like to plant the last few days in May first
Few days in June when the soil is nice and warm hopefully it adequate moisture as well um definitely want to plant into uh moisture to to get uniform emergence if we don’t get uniform emergence then we have uneven maturity come Harvest Time um one of the things my dad always
Said was don’t try to beat a major rain event um it doesn’t matter the weather we get before planting it’s the weather that comes afterwards so nice warm weather after planting ideally you want to see the beans twice in one week once when you’re dumping them in the planter
Box second is when they’re coming up out of the ground right here let’s talk about weed control obviously a key for any type of production uh watch the strategy here um two pass is always part of this but you might want to think a little bit earlier on right yeah
Absolutely um your wheat control program should start with the previous corn crop and or wheat crop um you definitely want to control your perennial weeds and your tough to kill weeds in those two crops because you have more options on the B crop itself definitely a two- pass
Approach the first pass should be a soil applied uh herbicide that predominant controls your anual grasses and some broadleaf weeds as well and then uh the second pass will come about 21 to 24 days after planting and there you’re going to address some uh broadleaf weed escapes you may also need to address
Escape Daniel grasses and some volunteer corn so in fact it might be a three- pass approach you can mix the grass herbicide and the Broadley uh herbicide together but ideally should be done separate passes because of timeing and because of efficacy it’s very important to control your anal grasses in crop and
Edible beans cuz the products we have for Des desiccation do not do a particularly good job on on grasses I want to talk about the disease control you’ve always you’ve already tried to sort of sneak white mold in there a couple of times I’m assuming that’s important consideration uh that’s the
Difference between a great crop and a poor crop so um definitely white mold is the key one of the key diseases in edible in edible beans so we wanted to um we definitely want to address that so do that in a couple different ways one is through the use of fungicides and two
Is is managing our populations to as a strategy to to control uh white mold and Sh final question and that is about Harvest uh you know what do we need to think about um as we Harvest approaches and as we get into the field yeah so um
Desiccation um is certainly key for for successful Harvest uh operations um be patient um there a lot of Growers think that if you apply desin early it’ll hasten maturity that’s not the case at all it does not speed up maturity so be patient wait till the crop is ready to
Desiccate and you’ll be uh much more successful number two is um desicant um uh their performance is based on the weather so we want nice sunny warm weather is ideal if we don’t get those conditions at least we want to try to maximize that as much as possible so um
That’s key there when it comes to combine settings um again be patient wait till the crop is ready to harvest uh if conditions are less than ideal slow down a little bit with that combine speed uh do a good job it’s not erase to the Finish Line do a
Good job you’ve worked hard all season to get a good product make sure you do that final step and do a good job of that um one of the other things too is is tip that that feeder um uh plate forward so that the
Header is on a on a lower angle to the ground and you can uh reduce your cutting height and then uh reduce your your uh field losses that way too and finally when it comes to setting your concave and your rotor speed just set it so that you’re going to have to find
That happy medium where you’re just thrashing up the beans and and what that does is minimizes uh crack seat coats and um and splits so the better job you do of combining your beans you’ll get paid more for your product and then our El as processors we’re able to produce a
Better product for the end user and it’s a team effort everybody wins that way well hey Dave great stuff great the chat about black beans on the edible beans schools thanks for stopping by all right Vern glad to do It