DR Wood: A full-maturity, upright growth-habit, disease resistant pinto bean

Technology Overview

The development of an upright (Type II) pinto bean, as opposed to prostrate architecture (type III) is advantageous. Traditionally, the harvest operation for dry beans is a two-step process. First, the beans are cut or pulled  to form windrows, and allowed to dry in the fields to ensure uniform dry down. Then the windrows are picked and threshed. This standard method of harvest requires more time, multiple pieces of equipment, and additional personnel in some cases. In addition, seed yield and quality may be affected by environmental factors such as rain and/or frost, and harvest schedules of other crops within the same farm (1).

With an upright plant architecture, direct harvesting of the bean in one pass is achievable, similar to other crops such as soybeans. This saves time and reduces the workload for producers, as well as reduces equipment and personnel costs. The DR Wood variety is also resistant to many bean crop diseases, and results in a high quality dry bean.

Advantages

• High yield potential
• High end-use quality
• Excellent seed color with a cream background color with light brown striping
• Upright plant architecture suitable for direct harvest
• Broad spectrum, stable disease resistance, exhibits alleles for:
  • common bacterial blight resistance
  • bean common mosaic resistance
  • bean common necrosis virus
  • dry bean foliar rust resistance

Applications

The DR Wood line offers dry producers high quality pinto beans for the US and international markets.

References

(1) Osorno, Juan. “Visions for a Sustainable Planet: Crop Ecology, Management and Quality.” Scientific Societies Soil Science Society of America, Symposium–the Interdependence of Genetics and Crop Management in Solving World Food Issues, 2012.

Last updated: April 2022