The larva of the bean pod weevil (BPW), Apion godmani Wagner (Coleoptera : Curculionidae), causes serious yield losses in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in Mexico and Central America, by consuming the seed as it develops in the immature pod . Resistance to the BPW was identified in bean germplasm of highland Mexican origin, and these sources of resistance were incorporated into a pedigree breeding program to recover locally adapted lines resistant to Bean Common Mosaic Virus and BPW, with commercial grain for Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. These lines yielded as well as or better than local cultivars in the absence of the insect, and better than local cultivars when the BPW was present . Resistance appeared to be governed by several genes, and was stable across geographic areas, seasons and planting systems .

Cuban agriculture has the growing need to increase its productivity. To achieve this, precision agriculture can play a fundamental role. It is necessary to develop an image processing system able to process all the crops information and calculate vegetation indexes in a satisfactory way. This will entail in accurate measurements of the nitrogen lack, the hydric stress, and the vegetal strength, among other aspects, seeking to improve the accuracy in the care of these aspects. This document reports the results of an investigation pointed to develop a procedure for capturing and processing multispectral aerial images obtained from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles [UAV]. This procedure searched to measure the vegetation indexes of sugarcane crops that may be correlated with the level of vegetal strength, the number of stems, and the foliar mass per lot. We used a USENSE-X8 UAV together with a Sequoia multispectral sensor and the QGIS processing software. The procedure was experimentally validated.

No abstract

Dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) yield in the Caribbean and snap bean production in southern Florida are threatened by bean golden mosaic virus (BGMV). Effective screening techniques are needed in order to transfer BGMV resistance into red kidney, red mottied and snap beans. A greenhouse inoculation method for BGMV using viruiiferous whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci Genn.) has been developed. The use of this inoculation method insures that bean plants are inoculated at the same stage of development with a uniform amount of inoculum. In the greenhouse, the reaction of bean plants to BGMV could be determined within 30 days after planting, whereas field evaluations require up to 65 days. In addition, the BGMV reaction of bean genotypes inoculated in different experiments was found to be repeatable. In susceptible genotypes, such as PC50, typical BGMV symptoms began to appear between five to eight days after inoculation (DAI). In the resistant line DOR364, symptoms did not begin to appear until 10 to 12 DAI and the severity of the symptoms was less than in susceptible genotypes. Pompadour G and lines derived from crosses with DOR303 showed a dwarfing response when inoculated with BGMV.The BGMV resistant lines derived from crosses with A429 did not develop symptoms when inoculated with the viruliferous whiteflies.This greenhouse inoculation technique may facilitate the effort to combine different forms of BGMV resistance.