Location: Tropical Crops and Germplasm Research
Project Number: 6090-21000-059-016-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2022
End Date: Jun 30, 2023
Objective:
The overall goal is to improve common bean production in the dry corridor and the humid lowlands of Honduras and Guatemala where crops are exposed to extreme climatic conditions, through breeding for high temperature and drought tolerance, and multiple disease resistance. These efforts will benefit the entire Central American and Caribbean region (CA/C).The project is organized into four objectives:
Objective 1. Release and dissemination of common bean cultivars with greater heat and drought tolerance, multiple disease resistance, and enhanced commercial seed characteristics.
Objective 2. Validation of the performance of advanced common bean lines for the dry corridor and lowlands of Central America in the small red, black, and white market classes that combine heat and drought stress tolerance, and disease and insect resistance through collaborative regional nurseries of common bean combined with informal training.
Objective 3: Broad implementation of marker-assisted selection (MAS) using the recently developed SNP Intertek platform will accelerate the development, release, and dissemination of superior cultivars with multiple disease resistance and organization of an informal workshop held in Central America at the 2023 meeting of the PCCMCA.
Objective 4: Sensory evaluation and market assessment of cultivar releases in Honduras and Guatemala to increase the uptake of improved bean varieties.
Approach:
Objective 1
Zamorano University will complete the release of SEF 70 in Honduras, including the official release, seed production, and seed dissemination.
Objective 2
The regional common bean SISTEVER nurseries planted in Central America and the Caribbean will be assembled, increased, and distributed by Zamorano University to collaborators in CA/C. Zamorano will also conduct trials in Honduras.
Objective 3
Approximately 25 to 30 KASP molecular markers, developed by the common bean breeding community, selected by the PASA collaborators, and processed by Intertek (Sweden), will be used for broad regional implementation of marker-assisted selection in the CAC. Zamorano University is assembling seed from ICTA, Zamorano U., CIAT, CENTA (El Salvador), and Nicaragua, and USDA-ARS and will organize these breeding lines, extract embryos in 96-well plates and send them to Intertek Sweden for DNA extraction and KASP analysis. Zamorano will assist in organizing a workshop at the PCCMCA Conference in May, 2023 on KASP marker assisted selection and bruchid techniques.
Objective 4
Zamorano will collaborate with the effort of Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT on market research at two different levels. Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT will lead sensory evaluations at the farmer level to test a small set of advanced lines (including SMN 97 and SEF 70). A second approach will be a market assessment using rapid appraisal methods. Both will place special emphasis on gender/youth integration.
