I read on line where the beans grow and looked up the latitude and sunrise sunset times.
Indochina AKA Vietnam.
The (extremely) photo sensitive was the clue and reading of the difficulty of growing them in the sub tropics in other words outside the tropics.
We live in the sub tropics as far as day light and night hours are concerned, not so much as climate is concerned as this has so much to do with other factors such as.
Jet stream.
Altitude.
The north and south pacific current and gulf stream.
The Sahara desert to name but a few.

My main information source was a document about growing them in Nepal, where the rice beans are grown extensively. I got my white rice beans from Baker Creek. People in NY, OH, TN, IA had great results. The one person in California was 600 miles north of me. They did not get good results. I got the red rice bean seeds from Epic seeds, and their seed is sourced from Guatemala. Since I never got flowers or beans I have no idea which ones I had growing (I had alternated colors when planting).

I am just going to have to give these a go next year (tracking where I plant each color), and give them a free rein space and time wise to see if they are possible to grow here.

I only had 5 or 6 seeds sprout, and they seemed to do the best where they got more sun and less water - the end of the bed where there was some shade part of the season, and there is a stronger water supply languished.

It's interesting to push the boundaries of what is possible, sometimes you get some crops no one else around has, sometimes you get nothing, but you always learn something in the process. :)

Looks like a lot of this stuff is grown for the fodder or food for critters because it grows so well in a wide variety of poor soil.
some people here have thought about growing kudzu for compost, A bad mistake.
This may very well be a good alternative beans or no beans.

Worth