Effect of Maturity at Time of Cutting on Quality of Dark Red Kidney Beans 1

DARK Red Kidney beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were first grown in California in relatively small amounts to produce disease-free seed for Michigan and New York bean growers. With the release in 1955 of the higher yielding variety 'California Dark Red Kidney', the production of the dry bean class Dark Red Kidney has risen to about 75,000 bags per year accounting for 38% of the Red Kidney beans grown in California in 1961 and 1962. A high proportion of the Dark Red Kidney beans grown in the state are canned. High quality dry beans are required to produce a high quality canned product of tender beans with an attractive dark red color and few split seed coats. Previous studies on the cooking quality of beans have mainly involved determination of the factors causing hard seededness (7, 10) and selection to remove hard seededness (2, 3, 4, 5). Split seed coats also reduce the quality of the canned product, for they cause the syrup to become starchy and the split beans appear unattractive, especially in extreme cases where the beans completely disintegrate. Quality of beans is also influenced by the degree to which seeds are damaged during threshing, cleaning, and handling. Damaged seed coats will appear as splits when canned and badly damaged seed will result in reduced germination when planted (1, 6). It was found that although the new Californian variety had no hard seeds and maintained an attractive dark red color when canned, it developed more split beans in the can than did the original variety from Michigan.