Stanley Beans

Stanley Beans

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Dust clouds can still be spotted across the Magic Valley as the 2017 bean harvest wraps up. At Brett and Judy Woody’s farm, the harvester stops long enough to check moisture content in the beans. I asked field man Mike Davis what he wanted it to be. “I’d like it below 15 1/2 and we are right at 15/4 so I’m going to leave it up to Mr. Brett”. Mike, of Kimberly Seeds International conducts the moisture test and conditions look okay for thrashing. Harvest days are getting slim as producers dodge fall weather conditions that can impact the quality of the beans. “These are called Stanley, they are a garden seed bean. The pods are very small. You can see it’s hard to get those out of there, that’s why they have to be just right when you thrash them.” The Stanley bean, originally from Holland, has been grown in the Magic Valley for about 20 years. An average yield in the region is 23 to 24 100 pound bags per acre. This area’s home to about 450 acres of this white bean. As husband Brett stirs the dust while thrashing, wife Judy is looking ahead to what needs to be done before the 2017 harvest is complete. “We actually have some corn and we do some corn thrashing, grain corn of our own and we also do custom threshing so we are doing a little of everything right now. Were still in beans and doing corn for other people.”
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