What should be noted before sowing common beans?

(1) Level the land and apply sufficient base fertilizer: For common beans, it is advisable to choose cereal crops such as corn, wheat, foxtail millet, and sorghum as the previous crop, and it is not suitable to grow them continuously or after other legume crops, or in successive or adjacent planting with legumes. When the cotyledons of common beans emerge from the soil, their ability to push through the soil is weak, so if the soil is compacted or the land preparation quality is poor, it is easy to get uneven emergence or missing plants and gaps in the rows. In addition, common bean roots bear root nodules, so they require loose, fertile, deep sandy loam soil with good drainage and aeration. For land reserved for spring sowing, autumn plowing should be carried out the previous year (such as in the Northeast and Northwest regions), and about 10 days before sowing the next spring, irrigation should be applied. Per hectare, 6-8 tons of organic fertilizer and 450 kg of superphosphate can be applied as base fertilizer, then the land should be plowed and leveled. Because the southern regions have more rainfall, common beans are generally sown on ridges, with a ridge width of 3 m and a drainage ditch between ridges 0.3 m deep, sowing 6 rows of common beans per ridge; before or after ridging, apply farmyard manure mixed with plant ash, charcoal ash, or potassium sulfate at 10-15 tons per hectare.

(2) Select excellent varieties and ensure seed quality: At present, some excellent varieties have gradually been promoted in production, such as red kidney beans, small white kidney beans, milky flower kidney beans, early green beans, and small black kidney beans with disease resistance and high yield, which are suitable for export. Common bean seeds are best obtained from healthy seeds harvested in the previous growing season. Before sowing, sun-dry the seeds for 1-2 days, which can promote after-ripening of the seeds and increase the germination rate.