LOCAL LANDRACES OF DRY BEANS (PHASEOLUS VULGARIS L.): A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION IN GREECE

Organic farming requires cultivars or landraces that are specifically adapted to this low input cropping system. In the border area of Prespa National Park, in which almost one third of the Greek organic beans are produced, seven locally adapted landraces of common dry bean were evaluated in four diverse environments in 2008 and 2009 for different agronomic and physicochemical traits under organic cultiva¬tion. Significant differences among landraces were found in yield characteristics such as yield/plant, pods/plant and 100 seed weight and physicochemical properties such as seed coat percentage, protein content, ash percentage, hydration coefficient and cooking time. Analysis of variance revealed environmental effects on the performance of the bean landraces. However, the lack of location by environment interactions, for some traits including seed yield/plant, showed a consistency in the landrace performance across the environments tested, with two of the landraces performing the best. The results will contribute to the better exploitation of local plant material and provide important information on the use of particular local landraces of dry beans concerning the agronomic behaviour, yield and qualitative characteristics of the final dry product. The landraces with the best performance under the different environ¬ments should be a useful resource for further development of genetic material suitable for organic farming in this protected area.