Morphological description of French bean varieties based on DUS characters

Abstract

The experiment was carried out during Rabi season of 2010-11 and 2011-12 to estimate the morphological variability of 18 French bean varieties collected from ICAR institutes and SAUs for 21 morphological traits (20 visual and 01 measurable). The varieties, viz., Pusa Himalaya show circular to elliptic, Kentucky Wonder and Swarna Lata showed elliptic and rest 15 varieties showed kidney shaped seed however, none of the variety had round seed shape. Five varieties, i.e. Kentucky Wonder, Lakshmi, HAFB-3, HAFB-4 and Swarna Lata have small seed size moreover five varieties (Azad Rajmah-1, Kashi Param, Pusa Himalaya, RCFB-56 and RCMFB-1) expressed medium seed size while, Swarna Priya have very large seed size and rest seven varieties were categorized under large seed size. The results suggest that the characterization of these varieties were done in order to use these varieties as reference varieties for protection of other new varieties under PPV&FR Rules, 2001. The best strategy for this research is to collect the information about distinct features of these varieties. The database generated may be useful for the selection of suitable varieties to be compared against the candidate varieties. This investigation may also be helpful to the researchers with respect to breeding of French bean varieties for particular traits. Moreover, farmers can also get benefited with regards to selection of suitable varieties of their interest.