Vigna radiata var. radiata
Origin: Madagascar (via Taiwan)
Improvement status: Landrace
Seeds per packet: ~50
Germination tested 12/2023: 43% (Below standard)
Life cycle: Annual
EFN INTRODUCTION. Mung beans were domesticated somewhere on the Indian subcontinent roughly 3,500 years ago. They have since spread around the world and are an important crop in various cuisines, eaten fresh, dried, and as sprouts. This beautiful blue-mottled variety from the island country of Madagascar is a testament to the long history of migration to Madagascar from Asia. Indeed, the language of Madagascar's people — Malagasy — is the westernmost language in the Austronesian family, which means it is more closely related to languages spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Hawaii, than to the languages of Africa. The same boats that brought people from the Sunda Islands (likely the island of Borneo) to Madagascar around 1,500 years ago, likely also brought the ancestors of these mung beans.
EFN co-founder Nate Kleinman got a sample of these lovely beans from the USDA roughly a decade ago. He has since always enjoyed growing mung beans — which have a growth habit similar to a sprawling black-eyed pea — but never managed to produce a crop large enough to sell. In 2023 he planted a large patch at The Seed Farm at Princeton University, which was lovingly tended to by a group of student interns working under Professor Tessa Lowinske Desmond, and those are the seeds we're offering here for the first time. Likely because these seeds were harvested rather late, the germination rate is below standard on this lot, but the plants will make up for it by producing pods and seeds in abundance!
GROWING TIPS: Direct sow after all danger of frost has passed. Space plants at least a foot apart and give plenty of room (four or five feet in each direction) for plants to sprawl. No trellis is necessary. Harvest once pods turn from green to dark brown.
