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Title: EVALUATION OF HALF RUNNER BEAN BREEDING LINES

Author
item MULLINS, CHARLES - UNIV OF TN CROSSVILLE
item STRAW, R - UNIV OF TN CROSSVILLE
item Stavely, J
item WYATT, JIM - UNIV OF TN JACKSON

Submitted to: Bean Improvement Cooperative Annual Report
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/18/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: White half runner edible podded beans are popular in the Appalachian area of the United States due to their excellent flavor. They are grown by home gardeners and by farmers. The two popular cultivars of this special class of beans are highly susceptible to bean rust and to virus diseases that cause losses in production, losses to growers, market instability, and usage of synthetic pesticides. Four breeding lines with some virus resistance that were developed by the University of Tennessee at Jackson along with six breeding lines and a released germplasm line, BelTenn-RR-2, that were developed by USDA, ARS at Beltsville, Maryland were compared with the popular, but disease susceptible cultivar Mountaineer White Half Runner for pod length, curvative, smoothness, and yield at the Tennessee Experiment Station at Crossville, Tennessee. Rust development was moderate and sporadic. The Tennessee lines had longer pods than most Beltsville lines, but most Beltsville lines had straighter and smoother pods than most Tennessee lines. The released BelTenn line ranked favorably for these characteristics, had desirable flavor, and yielded well. The released line may be named Volunteer. This released line, as well as the other Beltsville lines, is resistant to rust and common mosaic virus. Rust and virus resistance in desirably flavored half runner beans will save growers from disease losses and give consumers a consistent, dependable supply of desirably flavored half runner beans.

Technical Abstract: Due to the extreme susceptibility of the two available white half runner snap bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, cultivars, Mountaineer and State, to bean rust, caused by Uromyces appendiculatus, and their susceptibility to certain bean viruses, breeding lines have been developed with some virus resistance in Tennessee (UT lines) and with rust and bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) resistance at Beltsville (BT lines). One rust and BCMV resistant line that has been released as BelTenn-RR-2, six unreleased related rust and BCMV resistant lines, four virus resistant UT lines, and Mountaineer White Half Runner (MWHR) were grown in replicated field plots at Crossville, TN in 1998 for evaluation of pod, plant, and yield characteristics. The UT lines had longer pods than some of the BT lines, but the best rust and mosaic resistant lines had straighter and smoother pods. BelTenn-RR-2 was satisfactory in all characteristics as a resistant replacement for MWHR.