The Removal of Soybean Plants as Food

Edamame

• Soybeans are a quick-ripening, nutritious crop when picked unripe as edamame. These "vegetable soybeans" are rich in protein and provide a complete set of the amino acids required by the human body. The harvest arrives quickly, about 65 days from planting, and pods are picked before they turn yellow but after seeds are fully grown. The green seeds are eaten as an appetizer, snack or in other dishes by steaming or cooking until the seeds pop out easily. Many varieties produce a harvest of usable beans for one week to 10 days.

Harvesting Edamame

• If all the pods on a plant are at relatively equal development, as is the case with most varieties, remove the whole plant to harvest it all at once. Pull the entire plant out of the ground or cut it at its base. The best way to harvest edamame is to manually pick the immature, green pods by hand. Removal of the plant allows for a complete and easy harvest. Unlike ripe soybeans, the seeds are usually left in the pod until consumed. The best texture and flavor come from harvesting when the pods are bright green.

Soybeans

• Soybeans harvested in their ripest state are dry with a white color and are usually separated from their pods through a process called threshing. Indications of ripeness differ according to variety, but for many soybeans, yellow pods with brown specks are considered a good sign of readiness. Harvest soybeans when the plants are mature and the beans have dried out down to 14 percent moisture. The beans should be separated from the internal membrane of the pod and appear shrunken. After removal and threshing, soybeans are dried and processed to be used for soy products.

Harvesting Soybean Plants

• On the commercial scale, soybean plants are often removed from fields with a header or other grain-harvesting machinery. The header clips soybean stalks and gathers them to later be threshed. Sometimes headers are unable to capture low-lying soybeans. Though headers are associated with slight yield loss, they may be responsible for 90 percent of total yield loss. It is also possible to manually gather soybeans. After picking, soybeans are separated from their pods with threshing. There are many systems for threshing soybeans, including with simple hand tools, motor vehicles and machines. Essential to the threshing process is a careful approach as careless threshing can damage the beans and diminish their quality.