Heirloom beans is another niche opportunity for bean breeders. Demand for heirloom and specialty beans is increasing, and this trend is due in part to direct‐to‐consumer bean sellers such as Rancho Gordo, that have effectively created demand by framing stories around the beans which appeal to consumers (King et al. 2021). Some popular heirloom beans include Jacob’s Cattle, Calypso, Soldier, and Hidatso Red. There is also interest on the part of breeders to improve heirloom beans for agronomic characteristics and disease resistance. Studies of the yield and SNF capacity of heirloom vs conventional showed comparable yields for some heirlooms and reductions for others suggesting they can be incorporated into parents in breeding programs without major yield drag (Swegarden et al. 2016; Wilker et al. 2019). Five improved heirlooms were recently released by UC Davis, including a Rio Zape and Tiger’s Eye. Each was improved by backcrossing with the I gene to add BCMV resistance while maintaining the heirloom seed types (Parker et al. 2021a,b,c,d,e).