As part of Alliance/PABRA’s initiative to modernize bean breeding, technicians and scientist from the Pan African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) targeted countries in Africa, were invited for a training on bean breeding with a gender lens. The main purpose of the training was to strengthen the capacity of 54 field technicians and scientists across 30 sub-Saharan countries for four days from May 15 to 18, 2023, in Arusha, Tanzania.
The training was specially designed for PABRA member country technicians and scientists of the National Bean and Legume Breeding programs. Participants were trained on the importance of beans in the diet, genetic resources, Mendelian and quantitative segregation basics, how to combine traits in successful crosses, breeding methods, how genealogies are constructed, and the potential of interspecific crosses. Participants were also trained on Demand Led Breeding and Gender integration with respect to bean varietal improvement within the social and economic context.
A session in the field allowing reviewing concepts of bean growth habits and demonstrating the procedure for hybridization to create F1 seeds and plants. Observations on materials with different genetic constitutions of genes for Bean common mosaic necrosis virus (BCMNV) resistance permitted the recognition of virus symptoms, the effectiveness of combining two important resistance genes, and how the bc-3 recessive gene is inactivated in the heterozygous state, resulting in susceptibility to necrotic strains. Viewing populations in F2, F3 and F5 generations illustrated how advanced generations are progressively more homozygous.