By Greg Endres
NDSU researchers find that planting dates have minimal impact on dry edible bean yields.
Research shows producers have a wide range of time for planting.
Producers planning to grow dry edible beans this year may have the opportunity to plant earlier than normal, according to a North Dakota State University cropping specialist.
In North Dakota, producers typically plant dry beans in late May or early June.
“Recent study data indicate that farmers have a wide window for planting dry edible beans, assuming soil conditions are adequate during and following seed planting, for yield and seed quality,” says Greg Endres, the NDSU Extension Service’s area cropping systems specialist at the Carrington Research Extension Center.
NDSU researchers started the study in 2012, when the crop season started early and allowed producers to plant some crops, such as edible beans, earlier than normal.
“This prompted NDSU researchers to conduct field trials to explore if dry bean seed yield and quality can be increased with early planting, compared with the normal planting period (the last 10 days of May through the first 10 days of June) or a late period,” Endres says. “If so, early planting would provide the opportunity to increase profitability without additional input costs.”
They conducted the research through the 2015 growing season with pinto, black and navy market classes of beans and found planting dates had minimal impact on yields. Yield averages across six trials conducted at Carrington and Prosper were 19.6, 19 and 19.1 hundredweight per acre with early (May 11-24), normal (May 22-June 5) and late (June 5-18) planting periods, respectively.
“Averaged across the six trials, yield was statistically similar among planting periods but tended to be highest with early planting,” Endres notes.
Yields also were similar for each market type among the three planting periods.
In addition, researchers found that averaged across three Carrington trials during 2012 and 2014-2015 and market types, the time from planting to plant emergence declined the longer planting was delayed. The time from planting to emergence decreased from 15 days with early (May 13-23) to 10 days with normal (May 27-June 5) and eight days with late (June 12-18) planting.
However, the number of days from plant emergence to maturity were similar among the three planting periods. The range was from 80 to 83 days.
Researchers also found that averaged across market types in two Carrington trials (2014-2015), dry bean test weight, seed count, color brightness and general seed quality were similar among planting periods.