A FACTOR ANALYSIS OF YIELD AND SENSORY AND PHYSICO-CHEMICAL DATA FROM TESTS USED TO MEASURE CULINARY QUALITY IN DRY EDIBLE BEANS

Abstract

A principal factor analysis was applied to data for yield and 16 sensory and physico-chemical traits measured on 25 strains of blackseeded dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) grown in Michigan in 1978 and 1979. Five principal factors were extracted from the correlation matrix of traits. The principal factors extracted described "soaking," "cooked color," "thermal," "dry color," and "general color" constructs. The soaking, cooked color, and thermal factors are related to culinary quality and accounted for 67.1, 73.0 and 67.8% of the variance in the 1978, 1979 and combined data, respectively. The factors themselves did not provide an image by which culinary quality could be interpreted in a developmental sense from the physico-chemical traits of dry, soaked, or cooked bean seeds. Major traits did not appear in more than one factor in any of the analyses. When the loadings were examined from the point of view of the tests rather than factors, the constructs which emerged were coherent in a physico-chemical or technological sense and reasonable biologically. "Soaking", "cooked color", and "thermal" constructs can be measured by the hydration coefficient, L color value and Kramer shear press, respectively. These tests were able to differentiate culinary quality among test samples. Yield and protein content were independent of culinary quality.Key words: Phaseolus vulgaris L., consumer acceptance, seed coat color, soaking characteristics, cookability, protein content