Status report on the Phaseolus collection (for 1/1/07-10/23/07)

at the USDA, ARS, Western Regional Plant Introduction Station
to the Phaseolus Crop Germplasm Committee
Curator: Dr. Molly Welsh, 2007

There are 14,684 accessions in the Phaseolus collection as of October 23, 2007.Of these 86% have PI numbers.  79% of the accessions are available for request from the collection, and 79% of the accessions are backed up at a secondary site. 

From January 1, 2007 through October 23, 2007 the Phaseolus germplasm maintenance program continued with the regular seed increase program.  The curator tested selected accessions for BCMV until a part-time virus-testing position was filled.  At present as many accessions as possible are tested by the person filling that position.  And as long as there is money in the project’s budget, testing will be done on a part-time basis with emphasis placed on most important or most requested accessions.  As in the past, accessions are warranted to be virus-free or the requestor is notified that the accession can not be certified virus-free. 

Three new accessions were received into the collection this year.  Taxa in the collection, include Phaseolus hybrids & P. spp., and represent 50 of the 116 recognized Phaseolus taxa (Table 1). 

Distribution of Phaseolus germplasm from 1-1-2007 up to 10-23-2007 was 1638 accessions from 11 specie or variety groups. The distribution of germplasm from the Western Regional Plant Introduction Station was 21.0% within the western region of the U.S., 67.0% outside the western region of the U.S., and 12.0% to non-U.S. sites. 

Eleven (11) accessions with incorrect systematic identification have been correctly identified.  The program to correctly identify or re-assign accessions to their correct taxonomic ID will continue in the coming year, although not as many mis-identified accessions are expected to be found.

Wild accessions are entered into the increase cycle generally during the winter increase cycle due to day-length sensitivity of most species.  Seed is being collected from the wild accessions presently growing in the greenhouses. 

Information contained in the GRIN web-page descriptor site has been updated and continues to be monitored and changed as additional data is obtained.  Descriptors for Phaseolus can be found at:                     http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/crop.pl?83

 

 

 

 

 

 

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