Plant · P-239

Mung Bean

Vigna radiata (L.) R.Wilczek

Mung bean handles a hot summer better than almost any other bean in this family - its comfortable temperature range runs from the mid-20s to nearly 40C, so a hundred-degree day sits well inside its stride rather than at the edge of survival. It matures fast, as little as fifty days to dry seed, which makes it a genuine catch crop between a spring planting and a fall one. The mature seed cooks whole or split, it is the classic sprouting bean, and the young pods, leaves and flour all get used, while the crop doubles as fast-growing summer forage and green manure. It once grew on a commercial scale in Texas and stopped only because cheaper imported seed undercut it, not because the plant struggled.