Registered Pinto Bean Varieties

Type I Pinto Beans

• Type I pinto beans have an upright shape, a short period of flowering and determinate growth. Determinate means the beans grows as a bush and the stems stop growing once the flower racemes finish developing on the main stem or lateral branches. Agate is an open pollinated bush pinto with good resistance to rust and mosaic diseases that often plague bean plants.

Type II Pinto Beans

• Type II pinto bean varieties grow as upright vines and have a longer period of flowering than Type I pintos. These are indeterminate-growth varieties, which means the plants continue to flower and produce pods all season long. Winchester matures in mid-season and is rust and mosaic resistant. Grand Mesa was released in 2001 and is resistant to rust and tolerates white mold. This variety matures in midseason and is Plant Variety Protected. Arapaho has medium-long, upright vines that may lodge (fall over). Arapaho takes about 89 days to maturity, and its pods are striped at maturity, with four to five seeds in each pod. Medicine Hat has a short-vine growth habit and is resistant to mosaic virus. This variety takes about 90 days to mature.

Type III Pinto Beans

• Type III pinto beans have a long flowering period. These indeterminate-growth bean plants grow as prostrate vines. Bill Z is an indeterminate bean with short vines. This variety has intermediate resistance to lodging and takes 88 days to reach maturity. Bill Z and the Type II variety, Arapaho, both have Plant Variety Protection. Montrose also has PVP protection. This variety was released in 1999 and matures midseason. Montrose is resistant to rust and bean common mosaic virus but is susceptible to white mold.

Seed Certification

• Each state has an agency that establishes minimum standards of genetic purity and proper seed identification. Seeds that meet these standards are certified. Certification helps maintain the quality of pinto bean seeds and ensures that the seeds are disease-free and that the public gets the results they expect from different varieties of pinto bean seeds. Look for the certification on the seed container. Blue tags mean the seed is certified, while purple means the seed is registered and white means the seed is foundation class. Only seed from crops grown from certified seed may you save for planting in your garden.