Investigation of sources of resistance to antracnose disease in a Phaseolus vulgaris germplasm collection in Brazil

Abstract

Anthracnose disease causes significant economic losses in Brazil and worldwide. Common bean breeding programs all over the country have been making efforts to provide new cultivars that acquired improvements to many traits. Therefore, every year, a great number of accessions are deposited at the Germplasm Colletions. The selection to diseases resistance depends of the natural occurrence of pathogens in the field, which relies on environmental conditions. Thus, greenhouse evaluations of these accesses can provide information of potential sources of resistance to introduce on current breeding programs. Studies have related high pathogenic variability in Brazil and the most frequent of races 65 and 81 (Pinto et al. 2012, Ishikawa et al. 2011, Pereira, et al. 2010). Our aim is to evaluate the reaction common bean accesses of the Germplasm Collection from Universidade Federal de Lavras, Brazil, to two races of C. lindemuthianum and obtain useful information to breeding programs.