White bean is an edible vegetable plant from the legume family. The culture has dozens of bush and climbing varieties. In compliance with agricultural technology, gardeners manage to get high yields of nutritious and valuable product.
History of White Beans
The homeland of white beans is the South American continent. It is believed that the range of distribution of wild beans was in the territory of modern Peru. Thanks to the Indian merchants, from there the plant spread throughout South and Central America.
In Europe, white beans appeared in the 15th century - it was brought by Spanish sailors. Like many new cultures, Europeans used it not only for food, but also as an ornamental plant.
In Russia, beans appeared in the 17th century, but only by the end of the 18th century, "French beans" began to grow for food.
White Bean Specifics
White bean is a food that vegetarians especially value. Bean beans contain vegetable proteins, so they are often used instead of meat during fasting.
Composition and calorie content
In addition to proteins, white beans contain vegetable fibers, amino acids, calcium, magnesium, vitamins - E and group B. It is a low-calorie product that helps to reduce weight.
In 100 g of white beans:
- energy value - 102 kcal;
- carbohydrates - 47 g;
- proteins - 21 g;
- fats - 2 g.
The benefits of white beans
White bean beans are valued not only in cooking, they are often used as a remedy. Regularly using beans, the condition of the whole organism improves.
The effect of white beans on the body:
- the work of the cardiovascular and nervous systems is normalized;
- the production of gastric juice is stimulated;
- blood sugar is reduced;
- vision improves;
- immunity is strengthened;
- edema is eliminated / prevented;
- nails and hair are strengthened;
- metabolism improves;
- the body is cleared of toxins.
White beans are good for bones and teeth due to their high calcium content.
For treatment, not only beans are used, but also the inflorescences of beans, its wings. With their help, pancreatitis, heart failure, kidney pathologies, rheumatism, arrhythmias, atherosclerosis, gout, and diseases of the genitourinary system are treated.
Contraindications and complications
Bean beans are eaten only after heat treatment. Raw seeds contain poisonous toxins.
A side effect of eating beans is flatulence. To prevent it, it is recommended to soak the beans overnight in water, and only then boil them. This technique reduces the cooking time.
Beans are contraindicated in case of increased secretion of the stomach. There are diseases in which beans are used with caution and after consulting a doctor:
- gout;
- cholecystitis;
- stomach ulcer.
It is not recommended to consume a lot of white beans in old age. When allergic reactions occur, the product must be completely abandoned.
The best varieties of white beans
There are varieties of white beans that differ in ripening time, the size of the beans, their taste and texture, the size of the bushes, yield and other criteria. Among gardeners, varieties combining unpretentiousness with productivity and good taste are especially appreciated.
Popular varieties of white beans:
- Chali Variety with large beans. Fruits of delicate texture, flattened shape. Soups, side dishes, salads, stews are prepared from beans. The taste is similar to potatoes. Beans are cooked very quickly - up to 45 minutes. With 1 sq. m collect up to 1.7 kg of beans.
- Black eye. This variety has the most delicate beans and high energy value. Beans are boiled quickly. They have a high healing value. Used as a prophylactic antitumor agent. m collect 1.2 kg of beans.
- White mares. Large-edged weaving beans with lush foliage. Three beans in one pod. Used as a food and decorative culture.
- Belozerka. A high sugar variety. On one bush grows up to 50 pods. Fruits are medium-sized, roundish. Productivity - up to 2 kg / sq. m
- Lotus. Sredneranny crop beans. The fruits are fleshy. Suitable for mechanized cleaning. The fruits are used in cooking, cosmetology, for preservation. Productivity - 1.5 kg / sq. m
- White is flat. It has a high content of trace elements. The variety is unpretentious to the soil. It grows in almost all regions of Russia. Productivity - up to 1.5 kg / sq. m
- Moscow white. This green-legged variety is bred specifically for central Russia. It tolerates temperature extremes and short daylight hours, and is resistant to diseases. Average productivity - 1-1.5 kg / sq. m
- Navy. South American vintage variety with small pea-shaped beans. It has a high fiber content.
Fruits have a diuretic, hypoglycemic and antimicrobial effect. Beans are boiled for a long time. If soaked for 5 hours, the beans will be cooked in an hour. m collect about 1.5 kg of beans.
Different varieties of beans are grown separately from each other. The culture is prone to pollinating, so if you plant white beans near red, its fruits may become covered with reddish dots.
Features of planting white beans
The productivity of the beans largely depends on the conditions of its growth and the quality of the seed. The task of the gardener is to prepare seeds and soil for planting in accordance with all the rules of agricultural technology.
Landing time
White beans are planted in the soil with seeds, having waited until the soil warms up to + 10 ... + 12 ° C. In the middle lane, the crop is sown in May, given the maturity and weather conditions.
Bush beans are planted earlier than curly for 1-2 weeks. Rapidly ripening varieties are sown until the end of June. Harvest from them until the frost.
In regions with a cold spring, beans are recommended to be grown by seedlings. Seeds for seedlings are sown about a month before planting.
Seed preparation
To increase the yield of beans, the seeds are sorted, soaked, decontaminated and hardened before planting. Presowing preparation helps to prevent many diseases, improves the immunity and cold resistance of plants.
The procedure for preparing white bean seeds:
- Sorting. Visually inspect the seeds. Discard empty, spoiled, wrinkled. For a more thorough sorting, use water - all unmatched instances will pop up.
- Disinfection. Seeds of their own collection, as well as purchased seed material that has not undergone pre-sowing preparation, soak in potassium permanganate for 20 minutes - for disinfection.
- Soak. After potassium permanganate, rinse the seeds with clean water and soak wood ash in the infusion for 2 hours. Or just soak the seeds in clean water for one night. Such seeds are more resistant to cooling.
- Hardening. Place the seeds on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator (optimal temperature +2 ° C) for one week. Wrap the seeds in a wet cloth - they should not dry.
Five minutes before sowing, the seeds are immersed in a solution of boric acid to protect plants from pests and diseases.
Soil preparation rules
Under beans choose well-lit areas. They should not have blowing winds and drafts. The type of soil does not matter much, the main thing is that it be fertile and well-drained. The culture grows better on light soils and does not like heavy clay soils.
Ground preparation:
- Dig the area onto the spade bayonet.
- Add organic matter for digging - 4 kg of compost or humus per 1 sq. Km. m. Add 1 tbsp. l dolomite flour, superphosphate - 2 tbsp. l., and ammonium nitrate - 1 tbsp. l
When applying top dressing, an overdose of nitrogen fertilizers cannot be allowed - they stimulate the growth of green mass, which often harms the pods.
Gardeners climbing and semi-climbing beans are often used as a “sealant”. She is planted along the edge of the beds and plot. Beans, thanks to nodule bacteria, saturate the soil with nitrogen.
Good neighbors for beans:
- beet;
- carrot;
- cucumber;
- potatoes;
- pumpkin;
- Tomatoes
It is not recommended to plant beans next to other legumes, so as not to provoke the spread of pea moths and other specific pests of these crops.
Sowing White Beans
Beans are recommended to be planted in a checkerboard pattern. The planting scheme is selected taking into account the variety - the height and spreading of the bushes. If tall curly beans are planted, wooden supports are pre-installed near the holes.
Sowing order:
- Prepare the wells for planting. For bush varieties - 20-25 cm, for curly - 25-30 cm. The distance between rows is 40 and 50 cm, respectively. The depth of the holes is 6-7 cm, in clay soils - up to 4 cm.
- Put 3-4 beans in each well. When the seedlings appear, choose the strongest and healthiest of them, and remove the rest.
- Sprinkle the indentations with the soil and tamp it lightly - this will allow you to retain moisture in the soil and accelerate the germination of seeds.
- Mulch the soil with peat, humus or other suitable material.
If you grow beans in seedlings, the first ready-made pods appear two weeks earlier. To get seedlings, sowing begins at the end of March. Seedlings will be ready by May - they are planted in open ground, and if necessary covered with a film.
Care and growing
Beans are a relatively undemanding crop. If you provide her with good conditions, she grows without creating problems for gardeners. Particular attention is paid to watering and tillage, and when growing climbing varieties, the garter of the bushes is also important.
Watering
Beans are extremely demanding on soil moisture. Both waterlogging and drought are equally harmful to her. In both cases, inhibition of plants and a decrease in productivity are observed. The crop especially needs water during fruiting.
Features of watering:
- irrigation rate after sowing - 6 liters per 1 square. m;
- the frequency of watering before the formation of buds - once a week;
- at the stage of formation of 4-5 leaves - watering is suspended until flowering begins;
- when inflorescences appear, the irrigation rate is doubled, and then increased to 18-20 liters per 1 sq. m
Beans do not tolerate hot and dry periods. If they occur during flowering, plants lose flowers. A similar effect is observed with a lack of moisture.
After watering, the soil is loosened to prevent crusting. During cultivation, the bushes spud so that they are more stable and do not fall to the ground in rainy weather.
Top dressing
Beans are unpretentious to the composition of the soil, so they usually have enough fertilizers laid when digging the soil. If the plants lag behind in growth, develop poorly, they are fed with organic and mineral fertilizers.
Dry preparations and solutions should not fall on the aerial part of plants, so as not to cause burns. Granular fertilizers are laid out in rows, and liquid fertilizers are poured through the narrow nose of the watering can.
The procedure for feeding with a lack of nutrients:
- The first feeding is carried out a month after the emergence of seedlings. A complex nitrogen-phosphorus fertilizer is recommended, for example superphosphate - 30 g per 1 sq. Km. m
- The second feeding is carried out 3 weeks after the first. It will allow the plant to form full-fledged pods with the optimal number of beans. Contribute potassium salt - 10 g per 1 square. m
Many gardeners, instead of mineral fertilizers, during the second feeding, add wood ash - it contains a lot of phosphorus, magnesium and potassium.
Garter
Slow-growing beans do not need to be tied. Supports are prepared only for tall and curly varieties. Thanks to them, the plant can grow up freely. Without supports, the bushes will not give the desired crop.
The supports are made of wood - the plant can not weave on plastic or metal objects. The garter not only increases the yield of beans, but also prevents loss of yield - the bushes, spreading on the ground, begin to rot and hurt.
There are two garter options:
- On separate supports. Beans are tied after the height of the bushes reaches 15 cm. The stalk is wrapped around wooden supports, leading it counterclockwise.
- On the wire. Between supports with a height of 1.5 m stretch the wire to which the bean shoots are tied with ropes or twine.
Diseases and Pests
Bean productivity is greatly influenced by pests and diseases. Prevention is prevented by preventive measures - weed harvesting and spraying of plants with a 1% solution of Bordeaux fluid.
Beans affect mainly diseases of a bacterial nature. Plants, in violation of agricultural technology often suffer from various rot and spotting.
The most common diseases:
- Anthracnose. Accompanied by the appearance of brown depressed spots - round or irregular in shape. Veins of leaves turn brown, and the leaves themselves turn yellow. Holes occur at the spot, leaves die off. Fruits are covered with ulcerations.
- Bacteriosis. The disease causes the appearance of spots on the aerial parts of plants. Often leads to the death of plants. The causative agent is able to persist for years in the soil and on plant debris.
- Viral mosaic. Necrotic spots appear on the leaves, veins discolor.
To prevent disease, bean seeds are soaked before planting in Trichodermin and Bactofit solutions (proportions are indicated in the instructions).
The most malicious bean pests:
- Sprout fly. Nibbles young shoots. Able to destroy all crops. It is necessary to remove plant debris on time and observe crop rotation. Beans in one area are planted no earlier than after 4-5 years.
- Bean kernel. The larvae of this bug eat beans inside. Roasting fruits in the oven (+ 60 ... + 70 ° C) helps to save the harvest.
- Pea moth. The caterpillars of this butterfly eat out the pulp of beans. Safety measures are the same as for a germ fly.
If pests are found on bean bushes, it is necessary to process the beds. Popular drugs for pest control: Guapsin, Trichodermin, Planriz. But you can apply them only before the beans bloom and strictly according to the instructions.
Harvesting and storage
Eat green and dry beans. Not ripened (green) pods are harvested in the summer - in July or August (the collection period depends on the planting time and early maturity of the variety). Harvesting hard beans begins in September.
Features of the collection of beans:
- Green pods are plucked for food when the beans inside them reach 3-4 mm in length. Not only seeds go to food, but also wings.
- Beans are harvested in several stages, at intervals of about one week. Pods are torn off as they mature.
- Overriding must not be allowed. The pods may open, the beans will fall to the ground, the crop will be partially lost.
- If it is time for harvesting, and it is scheduled for rain, the bushes are cut completely. They are placed in a dry place, for example, under a canopy - good ventilation is needed. When the bushes dry, the beans are peeled.
- Bushes during harvesting are not torn out, but cut off. Nodule bacteria, remaining in the soil, rot and saturate it with nitrogen.
Green pods are not stored for a long time. Quickly losing moisture, they deteriorate, and after a few days they can not be used for food or for processing. To keep fresh beans longer, they put it in the refrigerator, including in the freezer.
Options for winter storage of white beans:
- In grains. Dry pods are shelled, and the beans are put in canvas bags or plastic bottles.
- In the bushes. Cut bushes can be stored in a dry and well-ventilated room with moderate temperature. Bushes are suspended from the ceiling - away from rodents. As needed, the beans are peeled.
White bean is a valuable culture worthy of the attention of culinary specialists and gardeners.Without requiring large expenses and agronomic efforts, this vegetable plant gives healthy green pods in summer, and in winter you can enjoy delicious and nutritious bean grains (beans).