# Dry Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) — Literature Survey

**ResearchForge sweep** · topic workspace: `research/dry-beans-seeds/`
**Date:** 2026-08-19 · **Depth:** comprehensive (24 query variants, 4 sources)
**Status:** metadata-level survey only — screening, full-text acquisition, and claim extraction are **not yet done** (human gates).

## 1. Method and limits

- 24 query variants covering the PRD research areas for dry beans (germination/varieties, nitrogen fixation & rhizobia, plant density, irrigation, pod development/dry-down, harvest/shelling/drying/storage, yield, and Mexico/frijol relevance).
- Sources: **OpenAlex, arXiv, Crossref, Semantic Scholar** (the full `all` preset was not used; it stalled on chia — see `research/chia-seeds/report.md`).
- 1,723 raw records → 1,382 deduped. Unlike chia/amaranth, the corpus is **strongly on-topic**: common bean is a major global field crop, so agronomy, breeding, and pest literature is abundant.
- **Limits:** metadata-level only. No PDFs, no full-text claims, no numbers. Human gates for screening and full-text acquisition (rforge automation policy). `web_search` unavailable. Semantic Scholar rate-limited 27/24 queries (HTTP 429).

## 2. Bottom line

1. Dry beans have the **deepest and widest literature** of the initial five crops — a major global staple food with a Mesoamerican origin and huge Mexico relevance. Field agronomy, breeding, pathology, and postharvest coverage are abundant.
2. **Nitrogen fixation and rhizobia** are well-represented (legume-specific): biological N-fixation in Peru, inoculation × N response, **phosphorus × Rhizobium inoculation** interaction, and the economics of biological N-fixation in Brazil.
3. The **food-staple relevance comes through clearly**: cooking/soaking/hard-to-cook, storage moisture × temperature, bruchid/weevil pests (including the Mexican bean weevil *Acanthoscelides obtectus*), and bean mosaic viruses are all documented.
4. **Human-scale manual postharvest knowledge is thinner but real.** Plant-density and intercropping papers exist, and the crop is a tractable staple (a few dozen pods shelled by hand, dried, stored). Exact small-plot figures still need grower/practical sources and original experiments — but the manual thread is more tractable than for chia/amaranth.
5. **Mexico is strongly represented** (*Phaseolus* is a Mexican staple; frijol biofertilizer work in Nicaragua/Bluefields; Mesoamerican origin; dry-bean weevil-resistance breeding), making dry beans a strong staple fit for the project's Mexico interest.

## 3. Key themes and exact papers (initial candidates; DOIs from the sweep)

### 3.1 Germination / seed viability
- Seed germination and vigor in a changing climate — `10.1038/s41437-022-00497-2`
- Salinity stress in common bean seed germination — `10.15835/nbha4017493`
- Environmental effects on seed development and quality — `10.21273/hortsci.15.6.775`

### 3.2 Nitrogen fixation / rhizobia / inoculation (legume-specific)
- Yield and biological N-fixation of common bean, Peru — `10.1007/978-94-011-2100-2_8` (1993)
- Response to inoculation × N fertilization for BNF — `10.1007/978-94-011-2100-2_13` (1993)
- **Phosphorus × Rhizobium inoculation** interplay, common bean (Ethiopia) — `10.3390/agronomy16010002` (2025)
- Economics of biological nitrogen fixation (bean/cowpea/mung, Brazil) — `10.1007/s11104-025-07613-1` (2025)
- Response of field-grown bean to Rhizobium + N — `10.1007/s003740000240` (2000)

### 3.3 Planting / density / sowing date
- Plant density and yield components, haricot bean — `10.21275/v5i6.nov164504` (2016)
- Row spacing × sowing date on yield/components, common bean — `10.5897/ajmr11.1311` (2012)
- Planting date × suboptimal seedbed temperature on dry bean establishment/phenology/yield — `10.4141/p02-185` (2004)
- Plant population and planting geometries — `10.1016/b978-0-444-88912-6.50019-0` (1992)

### 3.4 Irrigation / water / drought
- Drought-tolerant-associated SNPs in common bean — `10.3389/fpls.2015.00546` (2015)
- Proline screening for drought and salinity tolerance in common bean — `10.3390/agronomy10060817` (2020)
- Irrigation regimes effect on pinto bean yield and seed quality — `10.47176/jcpp.11.2.23942` (2021)
- Drought or/and heat-stress effects on seed filling in food crops — `10.3389/fpls.2018.01705` (2018)

### 3.5 Soil / salinity / fertility
- Compost effect on beans grown under saline soil — `10.1007/s40093-016-0141-7`
- Dry-bean genotypes: seed phytate and phosphorus uptake/distribution — `10.1590/s1677-04202002000100007`

### 3.6 Pests / diseases / weeds (rich coverage)
- Breeding garden bean for resistance to bean weevil (*Acanthoscellides obtectus*) — `10.17660/actahortic.2009.830.20`
- Antibiosis of wild dry-bean accessions on the Mexican bean weevil (*Acanthoscellides obtectus*) — `10.1093/jee/82.1.310`
- Resistance of common bean varieties to bruchid infestation — `10.62773/jcocs.v6i4.351`
- Bean Common Mosaic Virus: genetic interaction — `10.18174/202002`; seed transmission — `10.1007/978-981-15-4198-8_29`
- Fungal endophytes in germinated bean seeds — `10.1016/j.funbio.2016.01.017`
- Seedcorn maggot control with seed treatments, dry bean — `10.1093/amt/tsad012`

### 3.7 Harvest / maturity / shatter
- Pod maturity/dry-down and shatter exact figures need full text. Manual harvest/shelling coverage is thin in the academic set (gap — see §6).

### 3.8 Drying / storage / pests (staple-relevant)
- Dry and ultra-dry storage of bean/legumes — `10.15258/sst.2007.35.1.15` (2007)
- Storage studies on pinto beans under moisture × temperature — `10.1016/j.jspr.2012.11.003` (2013)
- Effect of bean type/moisture/blanch treatment/storage time on quality — `10.1111/j.1365-2621.1979.tb03796.x` (1979)

### 3.9 Cooking / grain quality (staple-relevant)
- Hard-to-cook / soaking study literature exists (a classic bean storage-quality concern). Full treatment in `cooking.md` once read.

### 3.10 Mexico / small-scale / intercropping
- Foliar biofertilizer on common frijol (*Phaseolus vulgaris*), Bluefields (Nicaragua) — `10.5377/rci.v8i1.568` (2011)
- Socioeconomic evaluation of common bean cultivation — `10.3390/plants12010213` (2023)
- Grain yield and biomass of a maize / dry-bean intercrop — `10.5897/ajar10.170`
- Effect of maize on bean yield and components — `10.21275/v5i2.020131678`
- Genetic variation for plant-yield of common bean in sole vs intercropping — `10.3923/ajcs.2014.158.164`

## 6. Coverage by research area (PRD §8.5 map)

| Research area (dry beans) | Found in sweep? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Germination / varieties | **Strong** | incl. salt-stress |
| Nitrogen fixation / inoculation | **Strong** | legume-specific; Latin America |
| Plant density | **Strong** | haricot, row spacing, seedbed temp |
| Irrigation / drought | **Strong** | SNP, proline, irrigation regimes |
| Fertilization | Strong | compost, phytate / P |
| Pests & diseases | **Strong** | bruchid, mosaic, seed-borne fungi |
| Harvest / maturity | Weak–Moderate | postharvest manual is gap |
| Drying / storage | **Strong** | pinto bean storage, dry/ultra-dry |
| Yield | **Strong** | crowded, context-heavy |
| Nutrition / cooking | **Strong** | hard-to-cook, soak |
| Mexico / small-scale | Moderate | frijol, intercorrelation |

## 7. Claim hygiene

- No numbers asserted from this metadata pass. Yield figures become claims with context + evidence + DOI in `docs/crops/dry-beans/yield.md` after reading.
- Preserve conflict (density/sowing-date effects differ by region and year); do not average.

## 8. Evidence gaps

1. **Manual shelling/threshing at human scale** — how/by what tools to shell a few kg by hand, time per kg; partially thin academically. Needs grower/garden sources + our experiments.
2. **Exact small-plot yields at the scales the project uses** (g/m², g/plant, kg/10 m² per `units.md`) — swept metadata reports kg/ha; conversion needs full-text or original experiments.
3. **Hard-to-cook & dry-down in the home environment** — covered as grain science; household adaptation needed.
4. **Mexico home-garden / frijol practice** — presence yes; small-scale handling still thin.

## 9. Failures

- Semantic Scholar: 27/24 queries rate-limited (HTTP 429 — `failures.jsonl`); no resume pass.
- arXiv returns are largely off-topic here.

## 10. Next steps (human gates)

1. **[HUMAN] Screening** `queue.csv`.
2. **[HUMAN] Full-text acquisition approval**, then `rforge oa fetch`.
3. **[AGENT after gates]** read, register source notes (`templates/academic-source.md`), extract claims with evidence tags.
4. **[AGENT]** update `data/crops/dry-beans.yaml` as warranted.

## 11. Provenance
`provenance.json`, `queries.txt`, `raw/`, `manifest.json`, `failures.jsonl` in this directory. Analysis: `scripts/analyze-dry-beans.mjs`.