Tepary Beans: Mitla Black

   

     So this year I had some germination issues with my beans and had to go out and buy some new seed. I decided I wanted to buy from this specialty hydroponic store, and I'm very glad I did. They actually carry Seeds of Change seed packets and you can find this variety online from them as well. However at the time I had never heard of tepary beans and I only bought them on a whim. Now by then it was days away from the beginning of July (due to procrastination) and I was a little worried. I got home and looked them up and it turns out they're actually a different species of bean originating from the southwest US. They're extremely drought tolerant, I must have watered them less than 5 times this entire summer. It also mentioned that since they are heat-loving and drought tolerant many people plant them much later than they would with conventional bean varities. Yeah, I got really lucky with this pick. They also need to be soaked beforehand and cooked a little longer due to a higher level of fiber and are good for you as they are a more complex energy source.

      Anyways, this variety grows on slender stems with small leaves and has really nice pink flowers. In my garden it grew to a height of about 6-7 feet and has been incredibly prolific. Intended for dry bean production, they have very dark black beans, a little smaller than normal varities but they make up for it in production.

    What has interested me most this year is the amount of variability there has been. I don't know if its just a natural part of the species, contaminated seed stock, or merely environmental effects but as you can see below there is quite a difference in pod color. The ones on the right are the darkest specimens I have found so far but it is truly impressive, the picture doesn't do it justice.




Typical-colored ones on the left

      Here are some single shots.



Close-up

 

    And then there is this one below. An even smaller fraction of the pods have shown this beautiful speckled pod-coloration. The lovely colors on these pods are due to anthocyanin production, something this variety is obviously capable of. The flowers, pods, and the beans are all impacted by this. Anthocyanin creates purple, blue, red, and black pigmentation in plants. It's also impacted by the sun, some of the younger pods that showed purple coloration were only impacted on one side(as they got older it filled in as the sun got a better shot at them).



Look at this one

 



Very dark and beautiful

      Growing these beans has been really interesting and easy. I highly recommend them, there just no hassle at all and only require a trellis and some hot weather. I saved seperate seed from the speckled and bright purple respectively and I am going to plant them seperately next year to see if it is carried on genetically. I assume and hope that it will and I would like to stabilize it so they produce only purple pods. We shall see. I like the purple pods of other edible podded/shelling beans and I think the color in these dry beans could be really interesting.