Luseko Chilagane working with Ana Vargas at the ARS in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

Luseko Chilagane, PhD student in Dr. Susan Nchimbi’s program at Sokoine U. in Morogoro, Tanzania completed a workshop on biological nitrogen fixation at the U. of Puerto Rico in collaboration with Dr. Consuelo Estevez de Jensen and worked on collaborative research on Angular Leaf Spot (ALS) at the ARS in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. ALS is a widespread disease in Southern and Eastern African common bean production zones, and a critical constraint to common bean production there and in Latin America. Luseko Chilagane and Luz Miryam Serrato, a PhD student at the U. of Puerto Rico researching ALS, worked on PCR amplification and sequencing of specific loci from ALS isolates collected in both Puerto Rico and Tanzania. This diversity analysis will yield important information regarding ALS variability and the corresponding response in common bean.