SCREENING OF A COMMON BEAN COLLECTIONS FOR BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS OF UNRIPE PODS

Forty nine bean accessions originating from 12 European countries, which differ in the hydrothermal regime, from a collection of the National Center of Genetic Resources of Ukraine, were screened. Analysis of biochemical parameters of the quality of technically ripe beans (dry matter, reducing monosaccharide, sucrose, and ascorbic acid contents) made it possible to identify their sources, which are recommended to be used as starting material to create high-quality common bean varieties. Four accessions were distinguished by a set of traits. Ukrainian variety Rosilka and Moldavian variety Epiranto had high contents of dry matter combined with high contents of sucrose in technically ripe beans. Russian variety Darina had high contents of dry matter and water-soluble carbohydrates (reducing monosaccharides and sucrose). Russian variety Rashel had high contents of sucrose and ascorbic acid. Accessions with low coefficients of variation of individual traits were selected; being weakly responsive to changes in the hydrothermal regime, they are recommended to be used in breeding. Accessions from France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine deserve special attention. Relationships between contents of ascorbic acid and reducing monosaccharides (correlation coefficient r =-0.49) and between contents of dry matter and water-soluble carbohydrates (r = 0.27: reducing monosaccharides r = 0.28 and sucrose r = 0.31) at 5% significance level were established. Analysis of relationships between the weather conditions and the quality parameters of technically ripe beans showed that all the biochemical traits (correlation coefficients: dry matter r = 0.96, reducing monosaccharides r = 0.70; sucrose r = 0.99; ascorbic acid r = 0.78) strongly depended on air temperature. Sucrose content strongly depended on precipitation amount (r =0.89). The other traits were less dependent on precipitation amount (dry matter content r = 0.67; ascorbic acid content r = 0.32; no dependence for reducing monosaccharide content was observed), and this relationship was apparent in combination with air temperature