New alternative for assessing cooking time of common bean progenies

Abstract

For a new common bean cultivar to be adopted by farmers and consumers, in addition to high yield, it must combine good culinary properties. Among them, cooking time is of greatest importance. In research, great stress has been placed on the identification of lines with shorter cooking time (Torga et al., 2011). The Mattson method was used in all these studies for characterization of this characteristic (Proctor & Watts, 1987). However, as there are hundreds of progenies to be evaluated in a common bean breeding programs, it is necessary to use a process for assessment of cooking time which is quicker and allows assessment of a large number of progenies. In light of the above, the purpose in the present study was to propose a new screening strategy for common bean progenies in relation to cooking time.