CLASSIFICATION OF COMMON DRY BEAN LANDRACES FROM THE SOUTH-CENTER OF MÉXICO BY SEED MORPHOLOGY

Abstract

Seed morphology of 75 common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) populations from indeterminate habit (type IV) were evaluated. Seeds were collected in the States of México, Morelos, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Tlaxcala. Data of geographic zone, farmer’ name, locality, municipality, state, agronomical and seed management techniques, were gathered at collect time. Descriptive and classificatory analysis of principal components and hierarchical clustering based on Euclidian distances were undertaken using seed traits, in order to determine the relationships among populations. There were 13 groups of color and locales names used by farmers to distinguish the bean populations, where the most frequent classes were amarillo, ensaladilla, rojo, negro and vaquita. Length, wide, weight and volume of seeds and specific weight were the major discriminative variables with respect to the total variation, according to the principal components analysis. Seven phenotypic groups were determined by cluster analysis: two population groups came from Estado de México, one of big seed size and other medium one. Two groups of small seed were collected in Guerrero and Oaxaca; and three group complexes, the first included populations of Tlaxcala and Oaxaca, other integrated with populations from Oaxaca and Guerrero, and the third one grouped populations of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Estado de México, Morelos and Tlaxcala. Therefore, the seed traits supported the description and classification of the phenotypic diversity of common dry bean from the south-center of México.