San Luis

This haba comes out of San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado, tucked into the far south-central corner of the state at roughly 8,500 feet; Native Seeds/SEARCH collected it from a local farmer in 1995. Farm Direct Seed, which sells the same San Luis Valley fava commercially, dates its cultivation around the town to about 150 years, making it one of the longer-running Hispano farming heirlooms in the southern Rockies. Seeds are plump and part pale green, part tan, and the plant is described as short, vigorous and productive rather than tall and rangy. NS/S found it quite productive in a Tucson winter grow-out, which is a meaningful result for a bean selected at 8,500 feet — it says the line is not strictly locked to a short alpine season. Growers in the valley use it three ways: food, livestock feed and a cool-season nitrogen-fixing cover crop.