Mineral profilling of a portuguese collection of common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) germplasm

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most produced and consumed legume in Portugal. Recent data show an average national production of common bean of about 2397 tons, spread over about 3547 hectares of production area (FAOSTAT, 2017). As a rustic crop, beans are known to have great morphological variability and adapt to different environments and landraces and varieties vary morphologically and nutritionally. The nutritional composition of the grains can be conditioned by factors such as genotype, origin, environmental and cultivation conditions, influencing the quality of the seeds. Crop selection is generaly based on seed agronomic perfomance and the nutritional value has oftentimes been overlooked. The objective of this study was to evaluate 236 Portuguese common bean accessions from different Portuguese regions conserved in the National germplam bank for their mineral composition. Given the large diversity found in this local bean collection, understanding the intraspecific variability of mineral concentration may help in the identification of best performing accessions that can be adapted to different environmental conditions and improve the
nutritional value of the seeds from farm to fork.