Melhoramento genético participativo de feijão-vagem (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) para cultivos orgânicos em Maria da Fé – Minas Gerais

Abstract

Most of the seeds that certified organic farmers employ in their crops are made from genetic materials developed for conventional farming, and many of them were treated with chemical products that aren´t allowed for organic crops. A participatory plant breeding that involves the University, the organic farmers and their representations can be an important alternative for obtaining more adapted cultivars. It is believed that the partnership between farmers and research institutions allows the selection of more suitable varieties for their lands, given that the domestication of many species of cultivated varieties passed by the hands of the indigenous, native people and farmers. This work has started a participatory plant breeding program in partnership with the farmers affiliated to the Maria da Fe´s Natural Agriculture Association (APAN-FÉ), located at the Mantiqueira Mountains, south of the Minas Gerais state, to develop more adapted green bean varieties to be used by their organic farmers. The parents were chosen from the cultivars commonly used and suggested by the farmers, who classified them as good, but with a few limitations and characteristics to be enhanced for the organic farming context. Parents of the commercial cultivars HX3000 and Novirex, along with the F1 and F2 generation of their crossing were used to infer over genetic parameters and the possibility of selection gain as of the characteristics desired by the farmers. The analysis of data obtained by studying these plants generations reveled a relatively high heritability for the number of pods per plant and their fiber content. Therefore, there is a predominance of additive effects and the occurrence of transgressive segregation, desirable attributes for selecting superior genotypes were found, and the estimate of selection gains was about 29%. Such results evidenced the possibility of a successful participatory plant breeding of green bean with the APAN-Fé farmers.