UC Davis

Tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius A. Gray) is a drought and high ambient temperature tolerant crop native to the Sonoran Desert, the hottest and driest region in the United States and Mexico. Although tepary bean is an orphan crop with little current commercial production, there was a brief period of larger scale production in the early 1900s in California. Tepary bean has great potential as a novel crop in a warmer world climate and can be introduced as an alternative pulse crop in hot and/or dry regions worldwide. TARS-Tep 23 (Reg. no. GP-309, PI 698457) is an improved tepary bean germplasm with wide-ranging adaptation to tropical and temperate regions experiencing high temperature and drought stress conditions, with broad resistance to bean rust and with resistance to common bacterial blight. It has a flat, mottled black seed type with good seed size, a Type III plant habit, and a short crop cycle of 55–61 d in the environments tested. This germplasm was developed cooperatively by the USDA-ARS, Zamorano University, the University of California–Davis, and the University of Nebraska. The use of this improved germplasm by farmers in production zones affected by abiotic and biotic stresses, or by breeding programs, can potentially increase seed yields of this climate-resilient crop.