Caracterización de la colección ex situ de Phaseolus Lunatus L. y Phaseolus vulgaris L. conservados en el banco de germoplasma de la Facultad de Agronomía-Udelar

The species Phaseolus lunatus L. and Phaseolus vulgaris L. (common bean) are the most widely cultivated species of the Phaseolus genus in Uruguay. Their production is based on landraces, and today there are no cultivars registered in the National Registry of the National Seed Institute (INASE). Data from the General Agricultural Census confirm that the number of farmers or peasants has decreased, as has the beans cultivated area, evidencing a progressive loss of family production systems and, with them, the associated genetic diversity. This situation highlights the need to conserve and enhance the available plant genetic resources preserved in ex situ collections. In this sense, and considering that the existing collections in the Germplasm Bank of the Faculty of Agronomy were not characterized and did not have complete passport data, it was proposed to advance the characterization and multiplication of these accessions as a strategy for their conservation and sustainable use. The objective of this work was to evaluate the existing diversity in seven accessions of Phaseolus lunatus L. and 18 accessions of Phaseolus vulgaris L. collected by the Horticulture Department in 1985/1986. The characterization was carried out at the Faculty of Agronomy, Sayago, Montevideo-Uruguay, between November 2022 and June 2023. Phenotypic descriptors of plants, flowers, and grains, extracted from the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) descriptor guides for each of the species, were evaluated. It is shown that for P. vulgaris and P. lunatus, within the species, all accessions differ from each other by at least one characteristic (descriptor). Diversity was identified in the collection of both species. For P. lunatus, seven of the sixteen descriptors used were discriminant. For P. vulgaris, fourteen of the fifteen descriptors were discriminant. This work allowed us to characterize diversity, which will guide future agronomic evaluation work on native bean varieties and expand knowledge of the Germplasm Bank's collection.