Phenotypic Characterization of 183 Turkish Common Bean Accessions for Agronomic, Trading, and Consumer-Preferred Plant Characteristics for Breeding Purposes

Muhammad Azhar Nadeem,Muhammad Qasim Shahid,Mehmet Zahit Yeken,Faheem Shehzad Baloch,Ephrem Habyarimana,Gyuhwa Chung,Muhammad Amjad Nawaz,Tolga Karaköy,Seung Hwan Yang,Vahdettin Çiftçi,Ruştu Hatipoğlu,Ferit Sönmez

doi:10.3390/agronomy10020272

Abstract

Plant landraces represent a repository of a gene pool, local adaptation of their domestic species, and thereby are considered a great source of genetic variations. Such genetic variation can be helpful to mitigate the current and future food challenges. A total of 183 common bean accessions including three commercial varieties collected from 19 Turkish provinces were grown to record their morpho-agronomic variations and to evaluate the best performing accessions under multi-environmental conditions. Plant height, days to maturity, pods weight, seed length, and 100-seed weight were used to evaluate the best performing accessions under different environmental conditions. A wide range of variations for traits like days to maturity (99–161), plant height (21–168.7 cm), seed length (7.41–16.4 mm), seeds per plant (17.8–254.4), and 100-seeds weight (24.97–73.8 g) were observed and can be useful for breeding purposes. The analytic results derived from the first three eigenvectors suggested that plant height, plant weight, 100-seed weight, and days to flowering were biologically significant bean traits. Seed yield per plant was positively and significantly correlated with plant weight and pods weight. Genotype × environment biplot discriminated the studied common bean accessions based on their plant height and growth habit. Plant height, days to maturity, seed width, and first pod height were found highly heritable traits and were least affected by environmental forces. Among 19 provinces, accessions of Bilecik showed maximum pods per plant, seed yield per plant and 100-seed weight, while Erzincan and Sivas provinces reflected the prevalence of bushy and early maturing accessions. Information provided herein comprehensively explored the occurrence of genotypic variations which can be used for the development of candidate varieties responding to breeder, farmer, and consumer preferences.

Highlights

The world is confronted with food insecurity due to climate change and nearly 800 million people from developing countries go to bed hungry [1]
G × E interaction was not significant for days to emergence, days to first flower, plant height, pods per plant, pods weight, primary branches, root length, and 100-seed weight, implying that selections made in one environment can be usefully exploited in the other environments, which can expedite the process of cultivar development and cut the costs associated with this activity
This study comprehensively explored a wider range of qualitative and quantitative traits variations in Turkish common bean germplasm under five environments and two locations

Summary

Introduction

The world is confronted with food insecurity due to climate change and nearly 800 million people from developing countries go to bed hungry [1]. It is necessary to increase the world food production by 60%–110%. In order to meet global food demands, there is need to harness plant genetic diversity. 41,500 accessions of genus Phaseolus are present in the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) [6]; there are hundreds of landraces present in farmer’s fields in different bean growing countries. The collection and characterization of bean diversity available in farmer’s field is a daunting task. Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is considered one of the most diverse crops by reflecting variations in its growth habit, plant height, pods, maturity, seed weight, and size [7]. It is necessary to explore the valuable traits of common bean available in farmer’s fields

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion