Morphological and agronomic characterisation of climbing bean genotypes

Abstract

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) is an important legume crop grown in Uganda providing a cheap source of protein and income to the resource poor farm. Basing on growth habit two types of beans occur namely; bush and climbing beans. In Uganda bush beans are generally the most predominant and yet climbing beans have several advantages over bush beans. To exploit such advantages, there is need to avail climbing bean seed to the farming communities. In response, the National Bean Program has bred several varieties of climbing beans but their agronomic traits have not been evaluated. Since release of any new varieties requires characterization and field evaluation for morphology and agronomic traits in order to provide superior characters which could be utilized to identify superior characters that will contribute to higher yields as compared to the local varieties. The objective of this study therefore was to characterise and determine the with in genotypes and between genotype phenotypic variation of the 56 climbing bean genotype introductions, and group them in defined groups based on their similarities. Data was collected for the vegetative, inflorescence, fruit, and seed characters of each of the genotypes. Ninety one percent of the total materials in study displayed a narrow genetic diversity, and this reveals the need to collect germplasm to widen the genetic base of climbing bean genotypes. Genotypes, MAC 50, MAC 12-2, DB200-15 and BRC 19 displayed a wider genetic diversity. Genotypes MAC 12-2, LAS 400A and DB 200-15 were identified as large seeded which makes them acceptable for most consumers in Uganda. Promising genotypes with yields greater than the local checks used in the study were MAC 19-1, MAC 35 and MAC 70-2 and are recommended for advanced testing trials.