Look at the name on the bag: Great Northern. It is the big soft white bean in soups, chili and baked beans, and its name points at a direction. USDA’s 2025 crop survey prints a Great Northern figure for just five states — two more, Colorado and North Dakota, carry a withheld mark instead of a number, and the other 43 states have no line in this table at all. And the state that sits at the top of this table did not start out with its own seed. University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension’s history of the crop records a farmer coming home from a trip through Idaho in 1923 having “purchased great northern seeds,” on a hunch about “similar climate, elevation, and other growing conditions.” Which of these three printed the most? Tap them most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→3 in order
“Northern.” It is right there in the name, so I am taking the coldest-sounding state on the list and I will not be taking questions. 🐾
2Answer
The real order is…
Nebraska — 843,000 cwt, measured in hundredweight of 100 pounds each, out of 1,121,000 for the whole country. That is three of every four Great Northern beans grown in America, and more than twelve times — about 12.4× — second-place Michigan. Now the part the name cannot explain. USDA withheld North Dakota’s figure, so the state with “North” in its own name prints no number here at all — and Nebraska did not invent this crop, it imported it. Nebraska Extension keeps the receipts. An early attempt failed: a 1917 seed contract with Bayard-area farmers “was not successful due to the climate of western Nebraska, which did not allow many of the bean varieties to properly mature.” Then in 1923 Chester B. Brown “purchased great northern seeds and brought them back to Nebraska” from Idaho, betting on “similar climate, elevation, and other growing conditions,” and by 1926 enough neighbours had joined in that they bought a bean cleaner together, “mounted it on a truck and went around from field to field cleaning and sacking beans, thereby formally beginning the industry in Nebraska.” A century later, Idaho — the state the seed was carried home from — prints the smallest of the five numbers in this table. Biscuit’s Field Note follows the trip.
📚 BackgroundThe big white bean in the soup pot carries a compass point in its name. The map does not agree. Nebraska Extension’s CropWatch says of the state’s dry beans that “This production is concentrated in western Nebraska, where the climate is arid and the warm days and cool nights provide excellent growing conditions for dry edible beans,” and lists the result plainly: “Nebraska ranks 1st in production of Great Northern beans.” It did not start there. Extension’s own history of the crop records that the climate first said no — a 1917 seed contract with Bayard-area farmers “was not successful due to the climate of western Nebraska, which did not allow many of the bean varieties to properly mature” — and that the crop arrived with a traveller: “After a trip through Idaho in 1923, he purchased great northern seeds and brought them back to Nebraska.” The traveller was Chester B. Brown, and he was betting on “similar climate, elevation, and other growing conditions.”(University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension, CropWatch, “Dry Beans”; and CropWatch, “Dry Bean Production in Nebraska — The Early Years” (Bob Harveson and Carlos Urrea, August 4, 2016))↗ (opens in a new tab)
“Northern.” It is right there in the name, so I am taking the coldest-sounding state on the list and I will not be taking questions. 🐾
3Compare
Great Northern beans grown (hundredweight, 2025)
🇺🇸 United States (national)1,121,000 cwt
Nebraska#1843,000 cwt
Most: Nebraska (843,000 cwt); smallest of the five states USDA printed: Idaho (39,000 cwt).
Note: hundredweight (1 cwt = 100 pounds) of Great Northern beans harvested in 2025, from USDA’s annual crop survey. Great Northern is one market class of dry edible bean; pinto, navy, black and the rest are counted on their own separate lines, so this is not the whole dry-bean crop. USDA NASS. USDA printed a Great Northern figure for five states. Two more — Colorado and North Dakota — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 43 states have no line in this table at all. Everything USDA did not print comes to 56,000 cwt — more than the 52,000 cwt fourth place printed. So only the top three can be called national places, which is exactly how many the ranking question asks you for; the two below them are printed figures whose national rank this table cannot settle. A state with no line is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
USDA printed a Great Northern figure for five states. Two more — Colorado and North Dakota — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 43 states have no line in this table at all. Everything USDA did not print comes to 56,000 cwt — more than the 52,000 cwt fourth place printed. So only the top three can be called national places, which is exactly how many the ranking question asks you for; the two below them are printed figures whose national rank this table cannot settle. A state with no line is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (2025)
Sources
Data as of: 2025
USDA NASS Quick Stats: BEANS, DRY EDIBLE, GREAT NORTHERN - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN CWT, 2025, by state↗ (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-03) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA printed a Great Northern figure for five states. Two more — Colorado and North Dakota — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms, and the other 43 states have no line in this table at all. Everything USDA did not print comes to 56,000 cwt, which is more than the 52,000 cwt fourth place printed — so only the top three here can be called national places, and the two below them are printed figures whose national rank this table cannot settle. This site re-runs that check on every build.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick BEANS / BEANS, DRY EDIBLE, GREAT NORTHERN - PRODUCTION, MEASURED IN CWT, year 2025, Total domain, and compare states.