Tepary Bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)

Month on the bottom, temperature up the side. The pale green background is what the plant can survive at all -- fatal above or below it, labelled directly on the chart where that applies to your zone. The coral band is its ideal range, and only fades in during the months this zone would actually have the crop in the ground -- reusing the exact same sowing/harvesting data as the calendar further down the page. The blue line is real monthly climate data (not a modelled estimate) for a representative rural/agricultural location in this zone -- a small farming town or agricultural research station rather than a major city, to avoid the warmer bias city weather stations have. For the actual verdict on how well this crop does in your zone, see the badge at the top of the page -- that's based on the site's own researched yield figures, not this chart.

1. Sow direct once the soil is warm. Sow seed direct after the soil has genuinely warmed -- tepary bean is a warm-season desert crop and won't germinate well in cold ground.
2. Water sparingly. Give tepary bean far less water than other dried beans -- its extreme drought tolerance means overwatering does more harm than good.
3. Let the small pods mature fully. Leave pods on the plant until they dry and rattle, rather than picking them young for fresh eating.
4. Harvest before pods shatter. Pick dried pods promptly once ready -- like many desert-adapted beans, tepary pods can split and drop seed if left too long past full dryness.
5. Shell and finish drying indoors. Shell the small pods and spread the beans somewhere warm and airy for a final week of drying before storing in an airtight container.

Pick your zone under "Temperature Range by Month" above and this updates too. Boreal and Alpine show no window at all, since this site's own yield data marks tepary bean as not viable there.

Tepary bean is a genuine calorie staple when dried at about 3,430 kcal per kg -- Mediterranean and Arid zones tie for the best yield here, and it's not viable at all in Boreal or Alpine zones.

Figures per plant sown, dried weight, from the site's own crop database. Maritime and Continental already reflect the 60% penalty applied to challenging zones.

Tepary bean varieties are mostly distinguished by seed colour -- a genuinely useful indicator, since it correlates with slightly different flavour. Both below are open-pollinated (OP), meaning seed saved from them breeds true and is worth keeping under this site's seed-saving approach; neither is an F1 hybrid.

Tepary bean behaves much like common bean for seed saving -- mostly self-pollinating, low risk, and genetically isolated from common bean despite the family resemblance.

Tepary bean is grown here specifically for dried storage -- pods are left on the plant until fully dry, then shelled and given a final week of airing indoors before going into an airtight container.

Stored this way in a cool, dry place, dried tepary beans keep for a genuinely long time -- years rather than months, the same storage league as this site's other dried pulses.

Tepary bean's genuine extreme drought tolerance is itself the biggest input-free advantage here -- bred over centuries for reliable cropping on rainfall alone, it needs little to no supplemental watering once established.

Bean beetles and aphids are the main pests to watch for -- light infestations can usually be managed with hand-picking or a strong water spray, without spraying anything bought in.

Tepary bean fixes its own nitrogen via bacteria in root nodules, genuinely improving the soil for whatever's grown there next -- factor that into a wider rotation plan, not just a calorie one.