Episode 2 of 21: Dean the bean
We’ve Bean around the Block is a podcast hosted by Antony Jarvie, and his guest for the episode is Dean Brown, Operations director of Pidelta. Pidelta annually produce around 600ha of dry beans, as part of their seed maize rotation strategy. Pidelta pioneered bean production in the KZN midlands back in the 1980s, with production of very disease resistant Carioca bean types. They transitioned to speckled sugar types as the varieties and technology improved and now produce upwards of 1500t of sugar beans for the local market annually. Despite choosing cultivars with good rust and angular leafspot resistance like PAN 9216 and PAN 9213, Dean still schedules 3 fungicide sprays combined with insecticide sprays to shepherd the crop though to harvest. The more upright cultivars combined with a tight pull-to-combine schedule has improved their harvest losses due to weather staining. This has been assisted by an investment in a high through-put electronic eye that helps remove the discolored grain from the crop. Much of the crop is bought by a few regular customers, but a portion of the crop is marketed via an on-line platform.    Finally, Sclerotinia is probably their largest disease concern, and this limits their flexibility in terms of row spacing and ultimately, their ability to harvest the crop directly with a combine. In all, Pidelta have a dry bean production programme that has stood the test of time and which fills a very important rotation spot in their overall farming practice. They certainly have 'bean' around the block.