Breeding New Kidney Beans

[Andrew Barney]

I'm having a hard time finding heirloom kidney beans or variety in kidney beans at all. Seems like the little diversity that is out there is disappearing and the distinctive curved kidney shape is also less pronounced.

Kidney Beans apparently come from South America, so growing in my climate has been more than difficult, but I'm not going to give up.

These are my goals as of now:
1. Maintain / adapt 'New Mexico Black Appaloosa' bean (red version can be bought as 'Gila River Bean' or 20,000 year old bean from baker creek).
2. Breed true Black Turtle beans with a larger Red Kidney Bean.
3. Try other crosses once i have good large curved kidney bean genetics.
4. Adapt them to shorter season growing.

If anyone knows of a black kidney bean that already exists (other than the true black turtle bean), please let me know.

[William Schlegel]

Aren't kidney beans and scarlet runner beans the same thing?

Hmm Google and Wikipedia seem to think common bean. Not the same as scarlet runner bean.

[Andrew Barney]

Aren't kidney beans and scarlet runner beans the same thing?

Hmm Google and Wikipedia seem to think common bean. Not the same as scarlet runner bean.

No. Two different species.

Scarlet Runner Breeding would be interesting as well, but this is a sub-type of the common bean. 'New Mexico Black Appaloosa' Beans are a distant cross between a kidney bean and a pinto bean.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Grocery store pink kidney beans grew really well for me.

Over the years, with occasional cross pollination, new seed coat colors showed up, as highlighted by the red boxes on the attached photo.

[Andrew Barney]

Very nice! Yes, that is exactly the sort of types I was hoping to find! Even better if they grow well in your climate.

I had read that the pink / light red kidney beans were the most recently bred kidney beans (1990's I believe) for commercial use here in the U.S.A., so the fact that they grew fine for you is not entirely a surprise. Would be perfect candidates to breed with my heirloom N.M. Black Appaloosa bean in order to breed a version of it that grows better here in my climate / area.

[reed]

What exactly qualifies a bean as a kidney bean? Do any in this picture meet those qualifications? I have lots more beans these are selected for their growth habit, being climbing but only to about five feet.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

My take, is that "Kidney Bean" is a marketing gimmick, describing beans that resemble the shape and color of kidneys.

Then we get into beans that are kidney shaped, but the wrong color, and people still want to call some of them kidney beans, but not others. I can't imagine anyone calling yellow goat's eye beans "kidney" even though they are more kidney shaped than the "red kidney" beans from the store. Does a multi-colored seed coat automatically eliminate something from being a kidney bean, even though it is kidney shaped?

But if it has the right color, but the wrong shape, then people ain't calling them kidney beans any more. Seems arbitrary and capricious to me.

I just sorted through my bean stash. It's filled with kidney shaped bean varieties that are the wrong color....

[Diane Whitehead]

from Healthline.com

Kidney beans are a variety of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

They come in a variety of colors and patterns, including white, cream, black, red, purple, spotted, striped, and mottled.

Raw kidney bean toxicity

Raw kidney beans contain high amounts of a toxic protein called phytohaemagglutinin (1).

Phytohaemagglutinin is found in many beans but is particularly high in red kidney beans.

Kidney bean poisoning has been reported in both animals and humans. In humans, the main symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes requiring hospitalization (52, 53).

Soaking and cooking the beans eliminates most of this toxin, making properly prepared kidney beans safe, harmless, and nutritious (27, 52).

Before consumption, kidney beans should be soaked in water for at least 5 hours and boiled at 212°F (100°C) for at least 10 minutes (54).

[reed]

from Healthline.com
Raw kidney beans contain high amounts of a toxic protein called phytohaemagglutinin (1).
Phytohaemagglutinin is found in many beans but is particularly high in red kidney beans.

So, is it the word "kidney" you got to look out for or is it the color red, especially dark red?

[Diane Whitehead]

Seems to be the red colour, though I don't know whether non-kidney red beans also can be toxic.  I've seen warnings about not using a slow cooker to cook kidney beans, as slow cookers don't reach a high enough temperature to eliminate the PHA.

From Ohio State University:

Other types of beans also contain PHA, but it’s much more concentrated in red kidney beans. For example, the unit of measurement for the toxin is called “hau,” for “hemagglutinating unit.” Raw red kidney beans have anywhere from 20,000 to 70,000 hau, but that drops to 200 to 400 hau when the beans are fully cooked — not enough to be a problem. White kidney beans, or cannellini beans, contain only about one-third of the toxin as red kidney beans. Broad beans, or fava beans, contain just 5 to 10 percent of what’s in red kidney beans.

[Diane Whitehead]

To get back to Andrew's search for different kinds of kidney beans:

The Sixth Edition of Garden Seed Inventory, originally begun by Kent Whealy and updated by Joanne Thuente was published in 2004 by Seed Savers Exchange.  I don't know if there is a more recent edition.

It lists these kidney beans and their sources:

Aztec Red, Brick Red, California Red, Charlevoix Dark Red, Dark Red, Large Red, Light Red, Mull, Pink, Purple, Ralph Dutcher White, Red, Redkloud, Troomly's Dark Red, White

The source for Troomly's is out of business but I could look up some of the others if you are interested.

Diane

[triffid]

Very difficult to qualify what is and isn't a Kidney Bean, perhaps there is more than one definition... in the past, that was a catch-all term for P. vulgaris, at least in British English. It appears that no distinction was made for of seed shape, climbing habit or whether the variety was grown for green pods or dried beans.

The English 3rd edition of Vilmorin's The Vegetable Garden, 1920, has a chapter titled 'Kidney Bean, or French Bean', reserving the title of 'Common Bean' for Vicia faba. Edible-podded varieties with round seeds are even referred to as Kidney Beans, only to then be described as having 'egg-shaped seeds'. It's apparent that by this point the term was thoroughly detached from a prerequisite for, or connection to, kidney shape.

White Coco, or Lazy Wife, Kidney Bean. Stem green, about 6 1/2 ft. high; leaves of medium size, stiff, rather long and pointed, of a dark, rather dull, green, and slightly crimped; flowers white; pods of medium length, rather broad, green, each containing five or six white egg-shaped seeds, about 1/2 in. long, nearly 1/2 in. broad, and over 1/4 in. thick.

But it appears that any obligation for true kidney-like appearance was disregarded even in the early days. Gerard cites Kidney Beans in 1597. Here again this designation is used broadly for P. vulgaris; he mostly describes climbing sorts and distinguishes them by the colour of the seedcoat. They're eaten exclusively in the immature pod stage, boiled with butter. The illustrations include some bean seeds that aren't particularly kidney-shaped.

When the term evolved from denoting 'all vulgaris types' to just 'kidney-shaped beans with red skins' is unclear, but must have been some time in the latter half of the 20th century, as a Carter's catalogue I have here from 1934 is still calling all dwarf varieties Kidney Beans.