Through coordination by James Bokosi (Bunda College), 35 PIC populations were grown at three sites in Malawi:
- Dedza District – (Bembeke Research Station) which is well known for heavy disease pressure and degraded, low fertility soils (low N, P and pH);
- Bunda College Farm—which was fertilized but was experiencing drought conditions;
- Bvumbwe—which exhibited the best growing conditions but suffered disease pressure.
The 35 populations were developed from crosses between ADP lines with superior performance across different countries and stress conditions and a list of them is available on the ARS-FtF website http://arsftfbean.uprm.edu/bean/?page_id=2
Plants were selected based on agronomic performance and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses in the field without regard to seed types. The F5 seed from each individual F4 plant will be planted as F5 plant rows in the off-season in order to obtain enough seed for thorough evaluation and selection among these fixed breeding lines during the next growing season in Malawi in 2016. It is expected after sorting based on seed shape and color that about 500 F5 lines will be selected.
Local common bean market classes present at a road-side stand in Malawi
Evaluation of the ADP
A subset of the ADP population consisting of 40 lines was evaluated at two locations: Bunda College Farm and at Bvumbwe Research Station. The African landraces Kiangwe, Kasukany, Kokola, and Kablanketi Ndefu stood out and a few lines from N. America performed well: Silver Cloud, VA19, and Pink Panther. Poor plant stand was observed for 30% of the plots and appeared to be due to a field effect not genotype. Good stand establishment for all of the ADP and PIC materials at Bvumbwe site indicated that the seed source from S. Africa had good germination quality. Drought was the prevailing stress at Bunda.
National Bean Trials
The Bunda National Bean Trials consisted of 16 entries which included 15 advanced lines and one common check Kalima (CAL 143). The lines were a mix of Andean and Middle American lines and a variety of seed types including black, small red, carioca, brown, sugar cranberry, large red and red mottled. The trials were planted at three research stations and three on-farm trials: Dedza District, Champhira, and Kukuluma. The Middle American materials outperformed the Andean lines at all sites, but a few Andean lines showed promise.