Phenotype based clustering, and diversity of common bean genotypes in seed iron concentration and cooking time

Abstract

Common bean is the world’s most important directly consumed legume food crop that is popular for calories, protein and micronutrients. It is a staple food in sub-Saharan Africa, and a significant source of iron for anemic people. However, several pests, soil and weather challenges still impede its production. Long cooking time, and high phytic acid and polyphenols that influence bioavailable iron also limit the health benefits. To inform population improvement strategies and selection decisions for resilient fast cooking and iron biofortified beans, the study determined diversity and population structure within 427 breeding lines, varieties, or landraces mostly from Alliance Uganda and Columbia. The genotypes were evaluated for days to flowering and physiological maturity, yield, seed iron (FESEED) and zinc (ZNSEED) and cooking time (COOKT). Data for all traits showed significant (P≤0.001) differences among the genotypes. Repeatability was moderate to high for most traits. Performance ranged from 52 to 87 ppm (FESEED), 23–38 ppm (ZNSEED), 36–361 minutes (COOKT), and 397–1299 kg/ha (yield). Minimal differences existed between the gene pools in the mean performance except in yield, where Mesoamerican beans were better by 117 kg/ha. The genotypes exhibited high genetic diversity and thus have a high potential for use in plant breeding. Improvement of FESEED and ZNSEED, COOKT and yield performance within some markets such as red and small white beans is possible. Hybridization across market classes especially for yellow beans is essential but this could be avoided by adding other elite lines to the population. Superior yielding and fast cooking, yellow and large white beans were specifically lacking. Adding Fe dense elite lines to the population is also recommended. The population was clustered into three groups that could be considered for specific breeding targets based on trait correlations.

An empirical evaluation of simulated gastrointestinal digestion platforms for use in plant breeding, using common bean (Phaseolus vulgarisL.) as a model

“…93 Testing of samples from more genotypes and market classes on dynamic digestion platforms would further inform breeding efforts. In such studies, we would recommend incorporating an empirical evaluation of cooking time [94][95][96][97] and continued use of genotypespecific cooking times to maximize comparability of digestive outcomes across samples; the effects of environment on cooking time have been found to be less major. 95,98 These dynamic digestion platforms could also inform research and development efforts in other grain legumes.…”

Identification of consistent QTL and candidate genes associated with seed traits in common bean by combining GWAS and RNA-Seq

“…These studies were conducted in different environments and used biparental populations, which revealed variation between the involved parents. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS), in which variation is captured among a defined population, have also reported genomic regions associated with seed size, shape, and quality traits (Blair et al 2009 ; Schmutz et al 2014 ; Cichy et al 2015 ; Moghaddam et al 2016 ; Giordani et al 2022 ; Amongi et al 2023 ). All of these genetic studies have described major, minor, and epistatic QTL for seed traits across all 11 common bean chromosomes (Arriagada et al 2022 ).…”

Adaptive Responses of Biofortified Common Bean Lines to Acidic Soil and High Temperatures in the Colombian Amazon Region

“…Advances in plant breeding and phenotyping contributed to elucidating physiological mechanisms related to the description of developmental stages, dry matter accumulation dynamics per organ, source-sink relationships, and plant growth simulation models [20,21], which are of great utility for selecting parents with traits of interest [14] in favor of improving the response of common beans to stress conditions [13,16]. One of the most important breeding traits for genetic enhancement is biofortification, which seeks to biologically increase Fe and Zn concentrations in the grain [22][23][24]. Results on screening of seeds of bean germplasm indicated an average concentration (mg kg −1 ) of Fe and Zn of 55 and 28, respectively, with extremes of 102 for Fe and 54 for Zn [25].…”