Hard‐to‐cook phenomenon in common beans‐ influence of growing location and hardening procedures

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Abstract
Summary: Two accelerated hardening procedures (storage for up to 4 months, and soaking in acetate buffer for up to 5 h) for testing beans were examined and compared, so that new cultivars prone to the hard‐to‐cook (HTC) defect may be identified. Bean hardness was measured by means of the Mattson bean cooker, and by measuring puncture force. Two imporant common bean (Phaseolis vulgaris) cultivars were grown in two locations differing in soil Ca and Mg content. Those from the high Ca site had longer cooking times, which increased more rapidly on accelerated storage and in the soaking tests. The results of this preliminary study suggest that the acetate soak hardening procedure is worthy of further investigation as the basis of a rapid test for the presence of the hard‐to‐cook defect in new cultivars.