Genetic Progress of Seed Yield and Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Brazilian carioca Common Bean Cultivars Using Bayesian Approaches

Douglas Mariani Zeffa; Vânia Moda-Cirino; Isabella Arruda Medeiros; Gustavo Henrique Freiria; José Dos Santos Neto; Suzana Tiemi Ivamoto-Suzuki; Jéssica Delfini; Carlos Alberto Scapim; Leandro Simões Azeredo Gonçalves

doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.01168

Genetic Progress of Seed Yield and Nitrogen Use Efficiency of Brazilian carioca Common Bean Cultivars Using Bayesian Approaches

Front Plant Sci. 2020 Aug 5:11:1168. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.01168. eCollection 2020.

Affiliations

¹ Área de Genética e Melhoramento Vegetal, Instituto de Desenvolvimento Rural do Paraná, Londrina, Brazil.
² Departamento de Agronomia, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Maringá, Brazil.
³ Laboratório de Ecofisiologia e Biotecnologia Agrícola, Departamento de Agronomia, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Londrina, Brazil.

Abstract

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is one of the most important crops worldwide and is considered an essential source of proteins, fibers, and minerals in the daily diet of several countries. Nitrogen (N) is considered the most important nutrient for common bean crop. On the other hand, the reduction of chemical fertilizers is a global challenge, and the development of cultivars with more N use efficiency (NUsE) is considered one of the main strategies to reduce the amount of N fertilizers. Genetic progress of NUsE has been reported in several crops; however, there was still no quantity in common bean. In this study, our goal was to analyze the genetic progress of seed yield (SY) and NUsE-related traits of 40 carioca common bean cultivars release from 1970 to 2017 in eight environments under low (zero) or high N (40 kg ha^-1) in top-dressing. Genetic progress, principal component analysis, correlations among traits, and cultivar stability were analyzed using Bayesian approaches. The lowest values of the deviance information criterion (DIC) for the full model tested indicated the presence of the genotype × N × environment interaction for all evaluated traits. Nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUtE) and nitrogen uptake efficiency (NUpE) were the traits that most contributed to discriminate cultivars. The genetic progress of SY under high N (0.53% year^-1, 95% HPD = 0.39; 0.65% year^-1) was similar to that obtained in low N conditions (0.48% year^-1, 95% HPD = 0.31; 0.64% year^-1). These results indicate that modern cultivars do not demand more N fertilizers to be more productive. In addition, we observed a high genetic variability for NUsE-related traits, but there was no genetic progress for these variables. SY showed negative correlation with seed protein content (Prot) in both N conditions, and there was no reduction in Prot in modern cultivars. Both modern and old cultivars showed adaptability and stability under contrasting N conditions. Our study contributed to improve our knowledge about the genetic progress of common bean breeding program in Brazil in the last 47 years, and our data will help researchers to face the challenge of increase NUsE and Prot in the next few years.

Keywords: Additive Main effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI); Nitrogen Efficiency Use (NUE); Phaseolus vulgaris L.; abiotic stress; plant breeding.