Biotech Updates

New High-Yielding Edible Bean Resists Bacterial Disease

July 6, 2007

There is a new northern bean made available to farmers and breeders that can resist common bacterial blight – and it is high-yielding too. Named “ABC-Weihing”, the bean cultivar was developed by University of Nebraska bean breeder Carlos Urrea, and Phil Miklas, a geneticist at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) using marker-assisted selection. The new bean variety resisted eight strains of bean rust and all non-necrotic strains of bean common mosaic in greenhouse tests, and also had an average seed yield of 1,869 pounds per acre.

Read the news article at http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=1261.