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Fava bean

Josep Gesti / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0

Fava bean

Vicia faba

A cool-season annual legume of the bean family (Fabaceae), also called broad bean, grown as a vegetable for its edible seeds and pods. NC State Extension describes a stiffly erect plant 2 to 6 feet tall with leaves of 2-6 leaflets and conspicuous toothed stipules, bearing fragrant white spring-and-summer flowers marked with a purplish or brown blotch. The fruit is a narrowly oblong flattened pod up to 11 inches long holding up to 6 large oval seeds. Like other legumes it fixes nitrogen from the air and is often used as a cover crop; it grows best in cool weather, with poor yields once daytime temperatures exceed the mid-70s.

Edible

Pollinator

Structure

Light

Full sun

Water

Moderate water

Mature size

2-6 ft tall · 12" apart

Hardy in zones

Annual; NC State lists no winter hardiness zone - grown as a cool-season vegetable

AHS heat range

1-6

Plant range authored in AHS heat-zone terms.

Native in Illinois

No

Related products

Cold hardiness

This plant is grown as an annual; hardiness zones don't apply.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

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Educator packet

Plant packet

Fava bean educator packet

A cool-season annual legume of the bean family (Fabaceae), also called broad bean, grown as a vegetable for its edible seeds and pods. NC State Extension describes a stiffly erect plant 2 to 6 feet tall with leaves of 2-6 leaflets and conspicuous toothed stipules, bearing fragrant white spring-and-summer flowers marked with a purplish or brown blotch. The fruit is a narrowly oblong flattened pod up to 11 inches long holding up to 6 large oval seeds. Like other legumes it fixes nitrogen from the air and is often used as a cover crop; it grows best in cool weather, with poor yields once daytime temperatures exceed the mid-70s.

Scientific name

Vicia faba

Plant type

vegetable

Hardiness

Annual; NC State lists no winter hardiness zone - grown as a cool-season vegetable

Light

full-sun

Moisture

moderate

Spacing

12 inches