Efficiency of methods for conducting segregating populations in the breeding of common beans for protein quality

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is part of the daily diet of over 300 million people in the world and is astaple food of low-income populations, due to its high protein content. Many authors have proposed a further improvementby breeding methods that exploit the existing genetic variability. The objective of this research was to evaluate the geneticpotential of segregating bean populations with variability for several traits and conducted by different breeding methods. TheF2 segregating population was developed from a cross of the parental genotypes CNFC 7812 and CNFC 8056. One hundredand fifty randomly taken F2 plants originated the segregating populations, which were conducted until the fifth generation bythe following breeding procedures: Single Seed Descent (SSD), Bulk and Bulk within F2. The total grain protein content of theF5 families was then analyzed. It was concluded that there was enough genetic variability in the cross under study. The Bulkmethod proved to be the most efficient since it generated families with superior averages for the trait protein content incomparison with the other breeding methods