beans and bean paste. While adding efficiency, investments in equipment are also critical to maintaining food safety certification, says Weber. “Over the last four years, we’ve updated three of our four lines. For many of our foreign customers, especially those in the European Union, food safety is a big thing. We’re in our third year of being certified by the British Retail Consortium — it’s a worldwide food safety certification that lets customers know we’re doing the right things and ensuring traceability.” Every load of beans delivered to New Alliance is sampled and tracked so each product shipment can be traced to the field where the beans were grown and the day they were processed. combine in the fall, with harvest beginning in late August. Preventing erosion means keeping a lid on soil in the off-season, says Peterson. Each product shipment can be traced to the field where the beans were grown. “Beans leave very little residue and we often get warm, windy winters, so we have potential for wind erosion. We try to establish a cover crop like wheat, oats or rye right after beans come off the field.” Strip-tillage helps preserve soil-saving crop residue, maintains acceptable emergence and helps build organic matter. With an average of 15.5 inches of moisture per year, the arid climate is perfect for dry beans, but precision irrigation is necessary for optimal yields. The Petersons add 18 to 20 inches of water via center pivot irrigation systems. “We vary Precision Decisions As a specialty crop, dry beans demand kid-glove treatment. An endless list of factors can hurt bean production and quality. The relatively fragile and highly variable soils around Alliance just outside the Sandhills add to the complex production system. A 90-day crop, dry beans are the last rows planted in the spring and the first to see the plant population based on soil type and expected yield potential,” he says. They began yield-mapping in 2001. “The big thing we deal with here is soil variability,” says Greta Birch, precision ag specialist with WESTCO. “We can have five soil types in a field, so managing for that is a big piece of what I’m looking to help the Petersons do. It all comes down to asking, ‘How can we either boost yield and make more money or cut back and save some money?’ It plays into environmental sustainability, too.” Birch and Agronomist Marcie Oelke use an extensive zone-mapping system to test soils and create fertilizer plans, then develop prescription maps to inform variable-rate fertilizer applications. “We pull 8-inch soil samples to test for micronutrients and phosphorus and 36-inch samples to check nitrogen levels,” Oelke explains. Producing a food-grade product puts added pressure on other inputs. “Our weed-control program is crucial, since there are few herbicides we can use,” says Peterson. “We used to use a lot of hand labor, but we’ve been able to > Color Counts To choosy buyers — at food companies or those cooking for their families — bean color makes all the difference. With Great Northern beans, brilliant white is best. Dry weather and precise production and processing help New Alliance beans meet that standard. “The beans stay bright white for years, and that’s a sign of quality,” says David Briggs, WESTCO general manager, “but with pinto beans, the beans get darker almost every day. Six months after you harvest a pinto bean, it’s a different color. And the market doesn’t like dark pinto beans. They taste the same, but they look different.” “Some markets like the Dominican Republic are really particular about pinto bean color,” says Dave Weber, who manages New Alliance. “North Dakota grows about six times as many pinto beans as Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming, but the pinto beans from western Nebraska and New Alliance are known for being bigger, having better color and holding their color longer.” Pinto bean breeders thought they’d solved the problem a few years ago by developing varieties of light-colored pinto beans. The beans looked great, but consumers balked when the light-colored beans made dishes like refried beans look more like potatoes than traditional flavorful beans. The new varieties fell flat and growers and processers returned to managing around weather, handling and time to control pinto bean color. Your CHS Connection 21 Beans are warehoused in 2,000-and 3,500-pound totes. Beans are moved onto rail cars or containers in totes or smaller bags for shipping to customers around the world.