Breeding perspectives of snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Scarlet bean (Phaseolus coccineus L.): a potential bean for India

Citation:

Singh BK, Gyan GP, Tiwari SK and Singh B. 2016. Scarlet bean (Phaseolus coccineus L.): a potential bean for India. In: National Symposium on Vegetable Legumes for Soil and Human Health (Singh B, Singh M, Rai AB, Singh PM, Prasad RN, Mishra GP, Singh BK, Ranjan JK, Devi J, Seth T, Nagendran K., Chaukhande P, Kumar R, Gautam KK, Gujjar RS and Kumar YB Eds). ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi, 12-14 February 2016, pp 162-170.

Email: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Botanically, the Scarlet bean is Phaseolus coccineus (fay-see-OH-lus koh-SIN-ee-us), which in Greek meaning “Red Bean”; though the seeds are multi-colored (In Greek it is:  fah-SO-lee KOH-kee-no). It is also known as Scarlet runner beans, a term that reflects the growth habit and scarlet/red flowers. The other names by which it is known include, fire-bean, mammoth, red-giant, scarlet-emperor, runner-bean, multiflora-bean, haricot d’Espagne, Oregon Lima Bean, Aycoctl by the Aztecs, Ayocote by the Spanish, case knife bean in England, and Feija da Espanha, feijaescarlata and feijatrepador in Portugal. The vines are perennial, but not frost hardy, and are usually grown as a half-hardy annual. It is generally climbing or trailing type, often grown as an annual crop for dry seeds, immature pods, shelled beans or as an ornamental plant. The vines may grow to 5-6 m or more in length. It belongs to the Fabaceae or legume family, and economically occupies the second position after P. vulgaris because of its highly nutritive value for humans and animals. The vine bears large green heart shaped leaves; attractive cluster of bright scarlet flowers, followed by numerous slender pods of about 10-12 cm long and 2.5-3.0 cm wide during January through March. The knife-shaped pods are normally green; however, there are very rare varieties bred by amateurs that have very unusual purple pods. An example of such a purple-podded runner bean is 'Aeron Purple Star'. The beans are as attractive as the vines and flowers themselves. Most varieties have red flowers and multicolored seeds (though some have white flowers and white seeds), and they are often grown as ornamental plants.

Snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): advances in genetic improvement

Citation:

Singh BK, Lal H, Ranjan JK and Singh B. 2016. Snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): advances in genetic improvement. In: National Symposium on Vegetable Legumes for Soil and Human Health (Singh B, Singh M, Rai AB, Singh PM, Prasad RN, Mishra GP, Singh BK, Ranjan JK, Devi J, Seth T, Nagendran K., Chaukhande P, Kumar R, Gautam KK, Gujjar RS and Kumar YB Eds). ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi, 12-14 February 2016, pp 125-136.

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

              Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), an important legume, is a rich source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre. The main categories of common beans, on the basis of uses, are dry beans (seeds harvested at complete maturity), snap beans (tender pods with reduced fibre harvested before the seed development phase) and shell beans (seeds harvested at physiological maturity) and. Snap bean is also known as French bean, garden bean, green bean, edible podded bean, string bean, fresh bean or vegetable bean. As the name implies, snap beans break easily when the pod is bent, giving off a distinct audible snap sound. The pods of snap beans (green, yellow and purple in colour) are harvested when they are rapidly growing, fleshy, tender (not tough and stringy), bright in colour, and the seeds are small and underdeveloped (8 to 10 days after flowering). After that period, excessive seed development reduces quality and the pod becomes fibrous, pithy and tough, and loses its bright colour. Snap bean seeds may also be used in dry static like the dry bean types. In that case pinto, kidney, pink, small red, etc. terms are used. In India, the dry bean type varieties are known as rajmash/rajmah, and snap bean named as rajmah phali in Hindi. Common beans display a wide range of growth habits from bush determinate to pole indeterminate types. Bush types are the most widely grown and are a relatively short duration crop; but on the other hand, in smallholder agriculture or in kitchen garden where land is scarce, labour-intensive high-yielding climbing beans getting popularity now-a-days. Dry bean is the largest pulse crop in the world with 23.60 mt of annual production grown on 29.29 mha area; and the top ten producing countries are Mayanmar (3.90 mt), India (3.63 mt), Brazil (2.79 mt), China (1.46 mt), USA (1.45 mt), Tanzania (1.20 mt), Mexico (1.08 mt), Kenya (0.61 mt), Ethiopia (0.46 mt) and Rawanda (0.43 mt). Moreover, snap beans’ global annual production and area is about 20.74 mt and 1.54 mha, respectively with maximum production in China (16.20 mt) followed by Indonesia (0.87 mt), India (0.62 mt), Turkey (0.61 mt), Thailand (0.31 mt), Egypt (0.25 mt), Spain (0.17 mt), Italy (0.14 mt), Morocco (0.13 mt) and Bangladesh (0.09 mt) [FAOSTAT 2012]. In India, it is grown on an area of about 1 lakh ha mainly in the states of Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North-East hills, Nilgiri (Tamil Nadu), hills of central India, Palni hills (Kerala) Chickmagalur (Karnataka) and Darjeeling hills (West Bengal). The tender pods of snap bean are good source of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), phylloquinone (vitamin K), β-carotene (vitamin A), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), Mn, K, Ca, P, Fe and omega-3 fatty acid. It is a legume crop, do fix some nitrogen but the N fixing bacteria are not active as with other legumes; therefore there is need to fertilize the field with nitrogenous fertilizer to harness the yield potential.

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Singh BK, Ramakrishna Y, Verma VK and Singh SB. 2013. Vegetable cultivation in Mizoram: status, issues and sustainable approaches. Indian Journal of Hill Farming 26 (1): 1–7.

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Singh BK, Sharma SR and Singh B. 2010. Heterosis for superoxide dismutase, peroxidase and catalase enzymes in the heads of cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata L). Journal of Genetics 89 (2): 217–221.

Singh BK. 2014. VRFBB-91: A French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) germplasm for earliness. Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 5.

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Advances in genetic improvement of cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.).

Citation:

Singh BK. 2015. Advances in genetic improvement of cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.). In: Novel Genomic Tools and Modern Genetics and Breeding Approaches for Vegetable Crops Improvement (Pandey S, Singh B, Mishra GP, Karkute SG Eds). ICAR-IIVR Training Manual No. 66, ICAR-IIVR, Varanasi, India, pp 101-115.

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.), an important member of cole crops (Brassica oleracea), is one of the most popular vegetables worldwide. The word Cole seems to come from the abbreviation of the word ‘caulis’ meaning stem, and it was variously spelt as Kale (English), Kohl (German), Kool (Dutch), Kal (Scandinavian), Kaali (Finnish), Kaol and Kol (Breton), Chou (French), Col (Spanish), Cal (Irish), Cavolo (Italian), and Couve (Portuguese). The Cole crops are a group of highly differentiated plants and these are generally grown all over the world from tropical to arctic climatic conditions. The present concept of curd “pre-floral fleshy apical meristem” consists of a shoot system with short internodes, branch apices and bracts. Globally, cauliflower grows at the latitude 11-60 °N with average temperature ranging from 5-8 °C to 25-28 °C. In its vegetative growth period, it may withstand temperature as low as –10 °C and as high as 40 °C for a few days. Both in world as well as India, cauliflower follows cabbage in importance with regard to area (1258 and 433.9 thousand ha), production (22840 and 8573 thousand Mt) and productivity (18.2 and 19.8 Mt/ha), respectively (NHB 2014). In India, cauliflower is grown in the hills and the plains at altitude ranged from 11-35 °N and temperature ranged from 5-40 °C. Important states producing cauliflowers in India are West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Haryana, Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttar Pradesh (NHB 2014). It is also grown in northern Himalayas and in Nilgiri hills. The curds of cauliflower are harvested from September to February in northern Indian plains and from March to November in the hills of North and South India. Over the last 15 years, cauliflower’s acreage and production in India is increased continuously by 60.7% & 75.3%, respectively; but its productivity increased only 9.1%.

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Meghalaya Local: A Natural CMS based hybrid of cauliflower grown in Meghalaya

VK Verma, AK Jha and BK Singh

Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 6, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Meghalaya Local a long duration high yielding local cultivar of cauliflower is widely grown by the farmers in the East Khasi Kills, West Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and part of Ribhoi district in Meghalaya. Being a cross pollinated crop heterosis breeding is very popular in this crop. To produce the quality hybrid seed, the uses of male sterile line is very important. Two type of male sterile lines i.e. MS-I (with non-viable pollen) and MS-II (without stamen) were identified and tested from the local collection (Table 1).

Table 1. Yield and related traits of CMS lines

Traits	MS-I	MS-II
Days to curd initiation	115.3	117.0
Days to curd maturity	140.0	148.0
No. of leaves	23.7	26.0
Leaf weight (kg)	1.30	1.50
Leaf length (cm)	53.8	55.0
Leaf dia (cm)	25.0	28.2
Stalk wt.(g)	12.1	11.6
Marketable curd wt. (kg)	0.920	1.100
Gross plant weight (kg)	2.290	2.670
Harvest index (%)	40	41

VRFBB-91: A French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) germplasm for earliness

BK Singh

Vegetable Newsletter 1 (1): 5, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

French bean varieties developed by different organizations generally start pod setting during February to mid-March and very sparsely during first fortnight of December in North Indian plains. IIVR has recently identified a new genotype ‘VRFBB-91’ whose pods are ready to harvest during first fortnight of December. It has been collected from Jhum land of Kolasib, Mizoram. Plant growth is bush type, height ranged from 45-60 cm and bears pink colour flowers at 35-40 days after sowing. The pods of VRFBB-91 are green and bright in colour, fleshy, tender, straight, cylindrical, free from parchment and harvested usually about 9-12 days after flowering. The pod sieve size i.e. pods width (measuring through ventral to dorsal sutures) and pods thickness (measuring through sidewall to sidewall) both ranged from 0.82-0.88 cm, hence pod cross-sectional shape is round, a desirable trait of vegetable French bean. On an average, the weight and length of each tender pod is 6.6 g and 15.4 cm, respectively. The line bears 20-22 pods/plant and yields 140-150 g tender pods/plant in crop duration of 80-85 days. A pod contains about 6.7 seeds which is kidney shape, black in colour and 100 seeds’ weight is approximately 23.85. The yield potential (tender pods) of VRFBB-91 is 115-120 q/ha which is better than released varieties such as Kashi Sampann, Arka Komal, Arka Suvidha, Swarnaprya, Pant Anupma and Arka Anoop (25-50 q/ha).

Indian collections of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.): Genetic variability, inheritance, character association and performance

BK Singh and Y Ramakrishna

Indian Journal of Plant Genetic Resources 27 (3): 263-270, 2014

E-mail: bksinghkushinagar@yahoo.co.in

Abstract

Twenty-seven genotypes of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) were evaluated to estimate the variability and inheritance pattern, to suggest suitable breeding strategies and to identify productive genotypes. Highly significant mean squares for all the traits indicated large variation among genotypes. High genetic gain through selection is expected for shoot length, leaf area, rhizome yield and dry matter yield because of additive gene inheritance; while curcumin accumulation in rhizome could be improved by selecting the heterotic seedlings as it is governed by non-additive gene. Furthermore, leaf length and curcumin content could be the most effective and reliable selection indices, as indicated by correlation and path coefficients, in identifying the curcumin-rich productive genotypes. A variety of North East India ‘Megha Turmeric-1’ excelled for the traits of commercial importance (dry matter recovery and curcumin yield). Conclusively, the genotypes of North East India were superior to other parts of India for most of the economic traits and potentially useful for genetic enhancement as well as for varietal improvement of turmeric.

Key Words: Curcumin; Heritability; North East India (NEI); Turmeric (Curcuma longa); Variability; Yield.