plant 2 or 3 beans per foot of row and the rows should be 20 to 36 inches apart. A single bush bean will rarely produce more than 1/4 cup of beans. From 100 ft of row, I have harvested as little as 1/2 gallon of beans. Typically, you need about 300 ft of row of bush beans to justify growing them.

All members of the common bean family Phaseolus Vulgaris will cross whether they are pole or bush varieties, however, because of the flower structure, crosses are rare. I typically get about 1 crossed seed per 300 seed harvested even when plants are right beside each other. That is too high for my purposes so I plant bean rows 80 ft apart in the garden. This reduces crossing to minimal levels.

I have harvested as much as 3 gallons of seed from a 100 ft long row of pole beans. This is significantly more than bush varieties produce.

DarJones

Wow... just 1/4 cup per plant. I just went into my kitchen and measured out 1/4 cup of kidney beans. I counted 110 beans. Let's say 5 beans per pod, that would be 22 pods. Seems reasonable.
I was thinking of devoting 100 square feet to bush dry beans, or a 25-foot trellis to pole dry beans. In the bush case I would plant roughly 100 plants total, which at best would yield 100 * 1/4 cup = 25 cups = 1.5 gallons.
Not exactly a high-yield crop, but I really do like to grow things that I can store for a long time and eat during the winter months.

check out the thread called 'bean science' where zeedman links to a thread that has a good discussion about dry bean yield.

Thanks, guys. I did go and read the "bean science" thread and as a result I think I'm comfortable trying a bush density of one plant per square foot.
One nice thing about gardening in NW Oregon is that is that it simply does not rain in August or September. That will work in my favor as I try to ripen my dry bean crop... whatever that turns out to be.

"One nice thing about gardening in NW Oregon is that is that it simply does not rain in August or September."

Sounds like perfect bean weather! You should get a great crop.

Wish I had the same... I usually get a few all-day soakers while my pods are drying, which cost me a lot in terms of spoilage. Last year was an exception, had 3 weeks of dry weather in September, just as all of my beans were drying. It was a great year.

Have you considered any varieties in particular?

Zeedman, yes, I think I've settled on YinYang(Calypso) for the following reasons:

1. It is reputed to be a productive cultivar.
2. Looks really cool.
3. Territorial Seeds sells it. They market seeds for my bio-region and it's by no means a guarantee, but at least somebody has decided that it does well here. Although I think I'll buy a 1-pound bag from the Purcell Mountain folks.
   Cannellinis look interesting too.

I know that green beans do well here, since I grow them myself and this area (Willamette Valley, OR) used to be bean country before the bush varieties and mechanical pickers took over. I grow a 24 foot row of Helda pole beans and I swear I can watch them grow right before my eyes. They seem to like the moderate summer weather. I don't see why dry beans won't do well. I could see that if we get alot of cool and cloudy weather, it might be a challenge to get them fully ripened and dry before October.

I'm late to this party, but I did find Fedco's "King of the Early" (2009) dry bean variety to out produce "Soldier Beans" (2008) by about 2:1.

And that was in spite of the fact that we had nothing but rain for the first 5 weeks of summer 2009. Both crops crowded closely together in a 6X6 bed. Seeds about 3" apart, in rows 18" apart.

"Zeedman, yes, I think I've settled on YinYang(Calypso) for the following reasons:
1) It is reputed to be a productive cultivar. "

I'll vouch for the productivity. Can't tell you much about the taste, though; I grew it for trial & preservation, and didn't have enough to do much testing. You might want to buy the beans from Purcell, and eat half, to see if you like them.

Calypso is pretty good flavor wise. They are a bit on the soft side to me, but easy to grow and relatively productive, and cook faster than pintos or kidney beans.

I have grown Calypso, Hutterite, and Jacob's Cattle in the same season with a full row of each variety. Production was low for the Hutterite, medium for the Calypso, and high for Jacob's Cattle. I really like the flavor of Black Turtle Soup beans, but would point out that they are best used in different dishes to the others. In particular, the black beans make really good cajun beans with rice.

Does anyone have experience with Marrowfat?

DarJones