Search

Background: As a dietetic source of fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and phenolic compounds, common beans have potential benefits in human health, namely in chronic diseases' prevention (e.g., cardiovascular diseases and colon cancer). Still, legume consumption, especially in European countries, is below recommendations. The consumers demand for innovative, attractive legume‐based food products suggests a potential future increase in consumption of legumes, especially in modern societies, keen on ready‐to‐eat foods with known health benefits. Objectives: With the aim of studying, the impact of wheat flour's partial substitution by common bean (56%) and maize (22%) flours in the nutritional composition of formulated cookies and its effect on human glycemia and consumers' satiety perception, after ingestion, a human intervention study (n = 16) was designed. Findings: Approved by consumers, common bean enriched cookies were responsible by reducing glycemic response, and by increasing satiety perception. The nutritional composition of common bean enriched cookies contributed to explain these effects. Conclusions: Common bean enriched bakery food products are valuable nutritional options for consumers concerned with satiety and chronic diseases' prevention. Significance and novelty: This study showed, for the first time, through a human intervention trial the relevance of using legumes (common beans in particular) as alternative ingredients to improve ready‐to‐eat products' nutritional quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Modern maize breeding programs gave rise to genetically uniform varieties that can affect maize's capacity to cope with increasing climate unpredictability. Maize populations, genetically more heterogeneous, can evolve and better adapt to a broader range of edaphic–climatic conditions. These populations usually suffer from low yields; it is therefore desirable to improve their agronomic performance while maintaining their valuable diversity levels. With this objective, a long‐term participatory breeding/on‐farm conservation program was established in Portugal. In this program, maize populations were subject to stratified mass selection. This work aimed to estimate the effect of on‐farm stratified mass selection on the agronomic performance, quality, and molecular diversity of two historical maize populations. Multilocation field trials, comparing the initial populations with the derived selection cycles, showed that this selection methodology led to agronomic improvement for one of the populations. The molecular diversity analysis, using microsatellites, revealed that overall genetic diversity in both populations was maintained throughout selection. The comparison of quality parameters between the initial populations and the derived selection cycles was made using kernel from a common‐garden experiment. This analysis showed that the majority of the quality traits evaluated progressed erratically over time. In conclusion, this breeding approach, through simple and low‐cost methodologies, proved to be an alternative strategy for genetic resources’ on‐farm conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

' VASO' is a Portuguese participatory maize breeding project (1984), where several maize landraces such as 'Pigarro' have been selected both by a farmer's (phenotypic recurrent selection) and a breeder's approach (S2 lines recurrent selection). The objectives of this study were to determine the phenotypic and genotypic responses to participatory selection using these two different approaches, to clarify to which extent both selection methods preserve genetic diversity, and conclude what is the preferred method to apply in sustainable farming systems. The results, obtained via ANOVA, regression analyses and molecular markers, indicate that for both selection methods, genetic diversity was not significantly reduced, even with the most intensive breeder's selection. Although there were some common outputs, such as the determinated versus indeterminated ears, cob and ear weight ratio per ear and rachis 2, specific phenotypic traits evolved in opposite directions between the two selection approaches. Yield increase was only detected during farmer selection, indicating its interest on PPB. Candidate genes were identified for a few of the traits under selection as potential functional markers in participatory plant breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some species of the Lathyrus genus are among the most promising crops for marginal lands, with high resilience to drought, flood, and fungal diseases, combined with high yields and seed nutritional value. However, lack of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying its outstanding performance and methodologies to identify elite genotypes has hampered its proper use in breeding. Chlorophyll a fast fluorescence transient (JIP test), was used to evaluate water deficit (WD) resistance in Lathyrus genus. Our results reveal unaltered photochemical values for all studied genotypes showing resistance to mild WD. Under severe WD, two Lathyrus sativus genotypes showed remarkable resilience maintaining the photochemical efficiency, contrary to other genotypes studied. Performance index (PIABS) is the best parameter to screen genotypes with improved performance and grain production under WD. Moreover, we found that JIP indices are good indicators of genotypic grain production under WD. Quantum yield of electron transport ( ϕEo) and efficiency with which trapped excitons can move electrons further than QA ( ψ0) revealed as important traits related to improved photosynthetic performance and should be exploited in future Lathyrus germplasm improvements. The JIP test herein described showed to be an expeditious tool to screen and to identify elite genotypes with improved drought resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portugal has a diverse common bean germplasm, which is still grown in farmers' fields. In this work, we searched for resistance to rust ( Uromyces appendiculatus) and powdery mildew ( Erysiphe diffusa) in a representative collection of the Portuguese common bean germplasm. Despite many accessions depicting intermediate levels of resistance when compared to the susceptible check, 24 and 13 accessions showed low levels of infection, in spite of a compatible interaction (disease severity ( DS) values lower than 5% and infection type ( IT) of 4), to rust and powdery mildew, respectively, indicative of partial resistance. Moreover, a resistant reaction was observed in 11 accessions when inoculated with powdery mildew ( IT = 0-1) and in additional 11 accessions (one in common) when inoculated with rust ( IT = 0-2). The levels of resistance found in this report anticipate great potential of the Portuguese national germplasm, recently reported as genetically closer to the Andean common bean gene pool, for disease resistance breeding of this important crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]