Amazing Bean Farming and Harvesting - Bean Cultivation Technology - Bean Growing and Processing

A bean is the seed of the bean plant. Each bean has everything it needs inside it to grow a new plant. The bean has an outer coating that protects it, but there's a small hole in the coating, called a micropile, to let water in so the seed can start growing. Inside the bean there's a baby plant ready to grow. This is called the embryo. There's also a store of food called cotyledon, which the new plant will use to develop into an adult plant. The beans used to make baked beans are called haricot beans. They are part of the common bean family. Haricots don't grow on a giant beanstalk like in fairy tales. They grow close to the ground. The best quality beans for baked beans come from Michigan, in the United States of America. The farmer plants the beans in springtime, in the month of May, which is when the soil is nice and warm, because this is how the bean plants like it. After two weeks, the shoot appears above the ground and begins to root into the soil. After a further four weeks, the bean plants are 60 centimetres high and they begin to flower. Bees and insects pollinate the flowers and this starts the growing process for a bean pod. The new beans begin to form inside the tough, protective skin of the pod. 90 days later, the farmer checks that the bean crops are ready for harvest. He then harvests them using this special machine. The beans are stripped from the plant and their pods and then loaded onto a lorry. They are then transported to a processing plant. The beans are unloaded and filtered to remove any dried leaves or twigs.