United Kingdom
September 7, 2018
“Our spring bean varieties are again at the head of the provisional 2018 RL yield results posted by PGRO,” comments Theo Labuda, Managing Director of LSPB (LS Plant Breeders Ltd). “Fully Recommended Lynx, Vertigo and Fanfare, as well as Provisionally Recommended Mallory, are performing extremely well and our new candidate variety Victus is even further ahead in yield performance compared to all varieties.
“Although this season’s disease scores are not yet posted, in the 2018 Recommended List table, Lynx and Mallory had the highest rating for downy mildew (‘7’) compared to the average of other spring bean varieties on the list of ‘5’.
“We also have a second candidate variety, Tiffany, which has comparable high yields to other leading spring beans, and is distinguished by a high protein content.
“It has a low vicine and convicine content - these are anti-nutritional compounds that accumulate in the cotyledons of faba beans and, when used in animal feeds, can affect performance.
“These concerns have resulted in increasing interest within plant breeding in developing low vicine and convicine faba bean germplasm and Tiffany - along with our other candidate variety Victus - are the first of such varieties to go through to RL trials. They will offer growers wider marketing options and a premium price through buyback contracts.
“As noted, these are still provisional results as posted on the PGRO web site. However, we can see a pattern as new varieties from all breeders move the spring bean yield performance upwards to the benefit of growers along with improved varietal characters for the benefit of end users,” adds Mr Labuda.
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