Effects of cultivar, growing location, and year on physicochemical and cooking characteristics of dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Dry beans are rich in protein, complex carbohydrates, and nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and are well suited to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers. Dry beans also contain anti-nutrients such as trypsin inhibitors, phytate and flatulence-causing oligosaccharides. Breeding improvement of dry beans is often limited by the lack of knowledge of the nutritional values and cooking quality properties of breeding materials. This research was conducted to investigate the effects of dry bean variety, growing location and year on physico-chemical and cooking characteristics of dry beans, including minerals, starch, protein, starch, phytate content, and soaking and cooking properties. Twenty dry bean varieties and breeding lines selected from the Morden Dry Bean Breeding Program were grown at two different locations for two consecutive years (2013 and 2014) in southern Manitoba, Canada. Results indicated that dry bean varieties, growing locations and years had significant effects on seed size, water hydration capacity, the cooking time of beans. There were significant variations from the different variety, location and year variations in protein, starch and phytic acid content in the observed beans. Most of the traits were also significantly affected by the interactions of variety-by-location, variety-by-year, and location-by-year. The cooking time was negatively correlated with protein, ash and phytic acid content, but positively correlated with firmness. The phytic acid content in beans was positively correlated with ash content. Knowledge gained from this study will be useful to bean breeders in selecting parental lines for crossing for variety development in efforts to improve the quality of beans.