USA
June 8, 2012

Source USDA-ARS via ASTA

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have identified more than a dozen faba bean germplasm lines whose ability to shrug off the chill of winter could offer Northwestern wheat growers an important alternative winter crop.

According to Jinguo Hu, who leads the ARS Western Regional Plant Introduction Station (WRPIS) in Pullman, Wash., commercial varieties developed from the cold-tolerant faba beans will give wheat farmers another legume to grow in rotation with wheat during the winter, especially in the Palouse region shared by Washington and Idaho, as well as other parts of the Northwest.

Peas and lentils are now used for such rotations, but they're no match for faba beans when it comes to "fixing" (with help from symbiotic bacteria) nitrogen into a form plants can use for growth and development.

Hu, together with ARS geneticists Clare Coyne and Rebecca McGee, Washington State University Professor William Pan, and graduate students Jolene Mwengi and Erik Landry, identified the winter-hardy faba beans during three years of field tests in the Palouse, using seed from the ARS WRPIS worldwide collection. That collection has 700 faba bean accessions from 60 countries, including England, France, Germany, Bulgaria and China.

The team's field trials showed high levels of winter hardiness in 14 germplasm lines based on their ability to survive sub-freezing temperatures, down to 4 degrees Fahrenheit in one case. The survivors also included offspring plants derived from a cross made between a temperate, vegetable-type faba bean variety and a winter-hardy accession, demonstrating the heritability of the trait and value of the 14 lines in breeding new, elite varieties.

In related work, the team also identified from 13 accessions numerous plants with white- flowered phenotype, which were conditioned by two independent recessive genes, zt-1 and zt-2. These genes prevent the productions of tannins that make the legume's seed less digestible. The team also is investigating DNA markers associated with these and other genes to aid the identification of plants with desirable traits.

Cultivated since early Neolithic times, faba bean today ranks sixth among the world's most important legume food crops. The legume is adapted to a wide range of environments and provides an important source of protein for people whose diets are low in meat.

ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the research supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security.
 

Website: http://www.ars.usda.gov

Published: June 8, 2012