Michigan State Gets $4M For Bean Research

LANSING - Jun 10/10 - SNS -- Michigan State University recived a four-year, $4 million grant from the USDA to work on genetic traits in dry edible beans with the hope of enhancing their economic and nutritional value.

MSU crop and soil scientist and Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station researcher Jim Kelly will lend his 30-plus years of expertise in dry bean breeding and genetics to help develop breeder-friendly genomic research tools to assist in selection of agronomic traits such as yield, plant architecture, processing quality, drought tolerance and disease resistance and key nutritional traits.

"Many specialty crops have been left behind in the new wave of genomics research," Kelly said. "Many of today's genomic tools used in genetic analysis are so expensive that we aren't able to access them. This grant provides an opportunity to expand funding on basic research so that these crops can be competitive, not only in terms of their agricultural contribution to the farming fabric of Michigan, but for their nutritional value to consumers."

Common beans, which include black, navy, pinto, great northern, kidney and snap beans, are consumed by humans more than any other legume crop. In addition to being a good source of fiber and protein, scientific evidence shows that consuming beans can reduce blood cholesterol and sugar levels, which helps prevent or alleviate certain types of cancer, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"This project expands the types of traits being studied in beans to include quite a range of nutritional aspects so that we can determine their genetic variability," Kelly said. "Combining the discovery of the genetic factors controlling agronomic traits with nutritional profiling data will show us how we might further enhance the nutritional quality of beans and will set the stage for nutritional improvement of the common bean for years to come."

The project involves 26 researchers from 16 U.S. institutions. The initiative is being led by Phillip McClean, Department of Plant Sciences, North Dakota State University, and a five-member executive committee composed of Kelly and scientists from NDSU, Oregon State University, Colorado State University and the USDA.

The project team also will initiate a modern plant breeding training program that focuses on early career recruitment and provides practical breeding/genomics training that illustrates how the integration of genomic and phenotypic data can be used to improve nutritional traits in plants.

The project will be administered under the Cooperative Agriculture Project, a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture program that funds multiyear, multi-institutional collaborative projects. The project is referred to as BeanCAP.

A $1 million USDA companion grant was also awarded to a project team led by Purdue University and NDSU that will be used to sequence the common bean genome. Sequence data from this grant will be used in BeanCAP to develop marker systems for use in bean breeding.

Kelly noted that the BeanCAP grant is the third significant USDA award to recognize MSU's specialty crop expertise in the past two years.