Responses of dry edible bean crop growth and water productivities under different irrigation scenarios in the U.S. high plains

Dry edible bean is an important crop for protein sources worldwide. As freshwater resources become increasingly constrained, understanding how dry beans respond to different irrigation regimes and identifying optimal irrigation management strategies becomes crucial for maintaining adequate yields. This three-year (2021–2023) study investigated the impacts of irrigation treatments, ranging from rainfed to over-irrigated conditions, on soil water dynamics, canopy cover, leaf area index, yield, actual evapotranspiration, and water productivities for dry edible beans grown in western Nebraska, U.S. Although dry beans are often considered a shallow-rooted crop, our results demonstrated their ability to adapt to drought stress by extracting soil water from significantly deeper depths than previously expected. Results also revealed that reducing irrigation by 25 % did not significantly decrease yields across all three growing seasons. The pooled normalized biomass water productivity (WPb) was 16.5 g m−2 with an R2 of 0.68. This quantified WPb can be valuable for future crop modeling simulations, such as those using FAO's AquaCrop model.