Variation in and Relationship of Biomass, Growth Rate, Harvest Index, and Phenology to Yield of Common Bean

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Abstract
A diverse set of 112 common bean (Paseolus vulgaris L.) accessions were evaluated for variation in eight traits related to yield over a 2-year period. Days to flower, days of pod fill, and days to maturity ranged from 25 to 66, 44 to 83, and 70 to 133, respectively, in upstate New York: Yield and biomass ranged from 81 to 387 and 270 to 1087 g•m-2, respectively. Harvest index ranged from 12% to 65%. The biomass (biomass/days to maturity) and seed (yield/days of pod fill) growth rates ranged from 3.2 to 9.3 and 1.2 to 9.5 g•m-2 -day-1, respectively. The economic growth rate (yield/days to maturity) extended from 0.6 to 5.7 g•m-2 -day-1. The growth rates, biomass, and days of pod fill were linearly and positively related to yield. Biomass and the growth rates explained a large amount of the variation in yield, with r2 values between 0.71 and 0.84; days of pod fill explained the least, with r2 = 0.09. Yield followed a curvilinear relationship with days to flower and days to maturity; yield was maximized at 48.5 days to flower and 112.2 days to maturity. Yield was a quadratic function of harvest index and maximized at 57.2%. Among these three curvilinear traits, days to flower explained 80% of the variation in yield, while days to maturity and harvest index accounted for 25% and 12.5%, respectively. The “ideal” genotype for New York was defined at these maximum values for harvest index, days to maturity, days to flower, and at 63.7 days of pod fill. Additionally, a simple equation is proposed to aid breeders in the selection of common bean accessions with strong sink strength. It is defined as “relative sink strength”: RSS = seed growth rate/biomass growth rate. Values > 1.0 implied strong sink capacity in common beans.