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A new pinto bean germplasm line resistant to anthracnose is now available
for use in developing new varieties of the legume crop, October 2004 by Jan
Suszkiw .

Germplasm line USPT-ANT-1 harbors a single gene, Co-42, which confers
resistance to the most-destructive races of Colletotrichum lindemuthianum,
the fungus that causes anthracnose, notes Phil Miklas. A plant geneticist at
the Agricultural Research Service Vegetable and Forage Crops Production
Research Unit, Prosser, Wash., he is handling seed requests.

In dry edible beans, athracnose causes disease symptoms that include
unsightly cankers on the plant stem, pods and seeds. Endemic to Michigan,
New York and other Great Lakes states, anthracnose most recently emerged as
a threat to 350,000 acres of susceptible pintos grown in Minnesota and North
Dakota. Those two states, plus Michigan, produce about half the nation's
$629 million dry edible bean crop.

Commercial pinto beans derived from the new germplasm line would be the
first to resist anthracnose, according to Miklas. Chemical fungicides,
clean-seed programs and sanitation are the standard control measures. But
crop resistance is the keystone defense. To develop USPT-ANT-1, Miklas used
marker-assisted selection, a gene-detecting technique that saves the time
involved in infecting plants and then waiting to visually check them for
resistance traits. USPT-ANT-1 is the product of crosses, and brackcrosses
(used to eliminate undesirable traits), made among established pinto bean
cultivars, including Othello, Maverick and Buster, with SEL 1308 providing
the Co-42 gene.

In field trials, USPT-ANT-1 produced seed yields that were 107 and 90
percent of Othello at test sites in Prosser and Idaho, respectively.
USPT-ANT-1 also compared favorably to Buster, another commercial check
variety. In those tests, the germplasm line reached its peak growth, or
maturity, nine to 14 days later than Othello and four days later than
Buster.

Jim Kelly, at Michigan State University;Shree Singh, at the University of
Idaho; and Ken Grafton, at North Dakota State University, collaborated with
Miklas on the pinto's development, testing and evaluation.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
agency.

[www.ars.usda.gov]

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