Can Haricot/Navy beans been grown in the UK?

[Rob Holmes]

Watched a programme recently about the Heinz factory in the UK (biggest in Europe IIRC) but all the beans come from South America.
Seeing as the UK can successfully grow Faba beans but export most of them to the Middle East, is it possible to grow Haricot/Navy beans in the UK?

 

[BigBarl]

http://www.pgro.org/images/site/2017-Guides/PGRO-AGRONOMY-GUIDE-2017.pdf

Page 39 on the link

Doesn't sound impossible but would suggest limited to the far south to be successful. They won't fix N either in the UK by the sound of it. The seed would need pre-inoculating with the right Rhizobia which can be done but is expensive. Ashbourne sounds just like the place to give it a crack..

 

[Flat 10]

There was an article on it in FW 5 or 6 years ago or longer. I think one supermarket was going to sell UK branded beans. Obviously didn't work out.........

 

[Simon Chiles]

Watched a programme recently about the Heinz factory in the UK (biggest in Europe IIRC) but all the beans come from South America.
Seeing as the UK can successfully grow Faba beans but export most of them to the Middle East, is it possible to grow Haricot/Navy beans in the UK?

Entirely possible, I think Premium Crops had a go, must have been a good 20 years ago. I think the main problem was getting good enough quality. The baked bean market needs white beans that are blemish free, and that was the problem.

 

[BigBarl]

https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/roasted-and-canned-pulses/products/red-haricot-water
https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/roasted-and-canned-pulses/products/baked-british-beans

I see the baked beans are made from Fava.

To me a bean is a bean, it's the sauce that makes the taste so post brexit we could all be having UK grown fava baked beans. And there might be a premium for bruchid damage to help the flavour infuse throughout the bean...

 

[franklin]

I seem to remember reading some articles on this a few years back. Main reason for lack of production was down to the UK weather making the samples too variable. They are really fussy about bean colour etc.

 

[Bogweevil]

I heard baked beans, a form of French bean, raw material grown in Michigan/Ontario. They call them navy beans rather than haricot tho' technically both Phaseolus vulgaris.80,000 tonnes apparently.

Sadly we don't have the right summers - can recall a bean called Edmund bred by NIAB in the 1970s for import substitution, but clearly unsuccessful.

Interesting botanical fact that three centuries of selection do not appear to have made these beans any hardier.

 

[Barry]

Navy beans were grown for a while in North Kent I think but consistency of yield is the problem, plus not really early enough for this country. Same issue as with Soyabeans really. If you have a good year you can get a decent yield but it doesn't happen regularly enough, so you really need earlier maturity than we have currently got.

 

[Gong Farmer]

Tried navy beans in trials in 85. So susceptible to frost you can't plant till May, then they grew so low we couldn't get the combine header under them.

 

[martian]

Presumably the same applies to Chick peas, or Garbanchos as they call them in Nebraska? The Spanish eat a lot and I suppose grow them as well. Nebraskan farmer I was talking to said they only grow 18 inches high so you need to get your header very close to the ground to get them all in

 

[Flat 10]

Presumably the same applies to Chick peas, or Garbanchos as they call them in Nebraska? The Spanish eat a lot and I suppose grow them as well. Nebraskan farmer I was talking to said they only grow 18 inches high so you need to get your header very close to the ground to get them all in

They have some lovely flexible headers for harvesting stuff like that in the states

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Tried navy beans in trials in 85. So susceptible to frost you can't plant till May, then they grew so low we couldn't get the combine header under them.

I think they trialled them at Wellesbourne NVRS mid-late 80s, I think the variety was called Albion ?

 

[Pilatus]

Five years have passed since this thread was started.
So have any plant breeders been able to breed any Navy Beans, Soya Beans etc etc that can be grown successfully in the South of the UK.
With the demand for Navy Beans, Soya Beans and many other edible beans so high it seems a great shame they can’t be grown successfully in the UK.

 

[Exfarmer]

They have tried growing Navy beans here since WW2 , you will get a crop 1 year in three. The yield will be less than a tonne per acre.
Fava beans are broad beans a very distant relation which grow well here and are frost hardy.
Navy beans are closely related to soya and French beans which are very tender

 

[Simon Chiles]

Five years have passed since this thread was started.
So have any plant breeders been able to breed any Navy Beans, Soya Beans etc etc that can be grown successfully in the South of the UK.
With the demand for Navy Beans, Soya Beans and many other edible beans so high it seems a great shame they can’t be grown successfully in the UK.

I’m not sure how much, if any, navy beans are grown commercially over here now. Soya is a different proposition, it’s been grown here for 15-20 years and whilst there are a few who haven’t been successful there are a significant number of growers who are quietly getting some decent results and increasing their acreage year on year. The soya breeding program over that period has also made quite large improvements in varieties and coupled with a wider range of herbicide approvals and a decent price I would envisage greater plantings year on year. If you want more information on Soya it would be worth sticking Soya UK into Google.

 

[nxy]

They grew navy beans for several years at Wye College when I was there in the late 80s. I think one year they grew enough successfully for Heinz to do a batch in Union Jack tins.

 

[mikep]

Hodmedods started these a couple of years ago.

 

[mikep]

And these

 

[crazy_bull]

Entirely possible, I think Premium Crops had a go, must have been a good 20 years ago. I think the main problem was getting good enough quality. The baked bean market needs white beans that are blemish free, and that was the problem.

Yes a mate grew some in Essex about that time, said staining ruined them. Guess we are just too wet near harvest?

 

[Bogweevil]

Beans for baking should be getting easier and easier with climate change and longer, warmer growing seasons, so good prospects for the future. Less than 6% of UK land currently gets enough heat in an average year.

Breeding programme underway at Warwick University Crop Centre aiming to identify genes associated with cold tolerance at sowing, they must have warm soil, and early ripening to avoid those stained beans.

Currently mostly imported from Michigan, USA.