Search
Genus

Phaseolus

Called “bean” in GBIF

Phaseolus is a genus of herbaceous to woody annual and perennial vines in the family Fabaceae containing about 70 plant species, all native to the Americas, primarily Mesoamerica.

From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

107
accepted species in GBIF
Source: GBIF
4
plants on Plant News
25
research articles
Browse by topic

Plants in this genus

4 plants

Research on Phaseolus

25 articles

Scientists find the exact rock where a desert bean began

A beloved desert-garden staple traces back to a single mountainside, and knowing its exact wild o...

Tiny AI model spots bean leaf diseases from phone-ready photos

A photo of a spotted bean leaf in your garden could soon get a quick disease diagnosis from a pho...

Friendly microbes and minerals help beans fight off three diseases

If you've ever grown green beans in a backyard plot and watched leaves develop rust-colored spots...

What science is finding about Phaseolus

Every article on Plant News that mentions a member of this genus, newest first.

Latest finding

Scientists find the exact rock where a desert bean began

Researchers tracked down the exact rocky mountain spot in West Texas where a 19th-century botanist first collected the wild ancestor of the tepary bean, a drought-tough crop grown by desert farmers for centuries, and gathered fresh seed there in 2025 to preserve it before it's lost.

Scientists find soybean's master genes for surviving soil stress

If you've ever grown beans in rough, nutrient-poor, or contaminated soil and watched them struggle, this research points to...

Common Bean crop-improvement / phytoremediation

Plants evolved double-acting proteins that jam insect digestion

The seeds and grains in your vegetable patch already carry built-in pest defenses, and understanding them could mean fewer...

Beans crop-improvement / plant-signaling

Tiny AI model spots bean leaf diseases from phone-ready photos

A photo of a spotted bean leaf in your garden could soon get a quick disease diagnosis from a phone app, without a lab visit...

Bean plant-disease-detection / machine-learning

Scientists say how long beans and peas bloom deserves far more study

The pole beans and peas in your garden keep setting flowers for weeks, and that long bloom window is the same trait breeders...

Beans crop-improvement / climate-adaptation

How legume roots build tiny homes for nitrogen-making bacteria

The pea and bean plants in your vegetable bed grow those pinkish root nodules by running an internal shipping network, and...

Beans soil-health / crop-improvement

Legume crops use their own unique genetic flowering clock

The dry beans, peas, and soybeans you grow or cook with flower on a schedule tuned by genes unique to legumes, which is...

Common Bean crop-improvement / plant-signaling

Scientists combine gene editing and fast breeding to toughen up legumes

The cowpea, common bean, or fava bean you grow in your garden could soon come in climate-tough varieties years sooner, since...

Common Bean crispr / crop-improvement

Friendly microbes and minerals help beans fight off three diseases

If you've ever grown green beans in a backyard plot and watched leaves develop rust-colored spots or water-soaked lesions,...

Common Bean crop-improvement / soil-health

How bean plants and soil bacteria survive climate stress together

The bean plants and peas in your vegetable bed rely on a hidden bargain with soil bacteria that trades sugar for fertilizer,...

Beans climate-adaptation / soil-health

Soil bacteria help green beans survive drought, and AI predicts how well

If you grow beans in a garden that dries out mid-summer, the right root bacteria could keep your plants producing even when...

Common Bean climate-adaptation / soil-health

Soil bacteria inoculants give small-scale farmers a cheap yield boost

If you grow legumes like beans or peas, the right soil bacteria can fix atmospheric nitrogen directly onto your plants' roots,...

Beans soil-health / crop-improvement

Gene editing gives disease-prone pulses a shortlist of pathogen-blocking targets

Chickpeas, lentils, and dry beans fail at alarming rates when fungal or bacterial disease sweeps through a field, and the...

Bean crispr / crop-improvement

Plant-derived L-asparaginases: Comprehensive functional and biological characterization.

Common beans — the same ones you're growing in your vegetable patch — carry enzymes in their proteins that scientists are now...

Common Bean medicinal-plants / crop-improvement

Genotypic and multi-environment phenotypic evaluation of the lima bean USDA National Plant Germplasm System collection

Lima beans you grow from heirloom seed are drawing on genetic diversity shaped by two entirely separate domestication events...

Common Bean crop-improvement / seed-saving

Current knowledge and future directions in disease resistance breeding of Andean and Mesoamerican common bean gene pools: A review.

Every dry bean in your pantry — black, pinto, kidney — exists because plant breeders have been racing against fungal and...

Common Bean crop-improvement / disease-resistance

RasGEFs Play Essential Roles in the Biology of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea and Can Be Used as HIGS Targets for Disease Management.

White mold quietly devastates backyard bean patches and sunflower beds every wet summer, and conventional fungicides often...

Bean crop-improvement / plant-signaling

Nuclear dynamics in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

White mold quietly kills lettuce, beans, sunflowers, and dozens of other garden vegetables every wet summer, and knowing how...

Bean plant-pathology / crop-improvement

A long-distance signaling loop promotes soybean nodulation and productivity.

Soybeans and their bean-family cousins quietly fertilize themselves by hosting root bacteria — and this discovery reveals the...

Common Bean plant-signaling / soil-health

Coordination of PTI and ETI in legume-rhizobium mutualism.

Every bean, pea, or clover you grow depends on underground bacteria that fertilize the soil for free—and this research...

Beans plant-signaling / soil-health

GBS-Enabled GWAS Reveals Genetic Architecture of Biomass and Nitrogen Modulation in Tepary Bean (Phaseolus acutifolius).

Tepary beans grown as cover crops could help your garden soil store nitrogen naturally, reducing the need for synthetic...

Tepary bean crop-improvement / climate-adaptation

Genome editing‑based strategies to combat geminiviruses: CRISPR/Cas9 and emerging high‑fidelity tools.

Geminiviruses, spread by whiteflies, routinely wipe out tomato, pepper, and bean harvests — and CRISPR-based crop resistance...

Bean crispr / crop-improvement

Integrating metagenomics into legume breeding: A breeder-centered roadmap from core microbiomes to precision inoculation.

The beans, lentils, and peas you grow or eat could become far more resilient to drought and poor soils by deliberately...

Beans soil-health / crop-improvement

Unearthing Root Response Mechanisms to Soil Compaction in Legumes.

Compacted soil — caused by heavy farm equipment, foot traffic, or even heavy rain — is quietly reducing the yields of the...

Beans soil-health / crop-improvement

Evaluating the legacy of drought exposure on root and rhizosphere bacterial microbiomes over two plant generations.

If drought conditions can program a plant's offspring to host different soil microbes, gardeners and farmers may one day use...

Common Bean climate-adaptation / soil-health