2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Among the cool season legumes faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is the most versatile crop with different end-uses such as grain, vegetable, feed, forage and green manure. Among the faba bean germplasm accessions in our collection in Pullman, Washington, there is a rare, unique historic variety with crimson colored flowers. It is documented that this variety first appeared in literature in 1778 in the United Kingdom and the seeds currently available can be traced back to a few seeds donated to a Heritage Seed Library in 1978. Although the flower color is appearing this variety has short pods (4-6 cm) and small seeds (0.7 grams per seed) which limit its yield potential. To develop a new germplasm we crossed the crimson flower genotype with an Italian vegetable type faba bean variety ‘Superaguadulce Morocco’, with the latter being the female parent. In summer 2014, we selected one plant with typical vegetable characteristics of large pods and seeds from a large segregating F2 population of approximately 600 plants. After four generations of selection at both Pullman, WA and Parlier, CA during the past two year, we obtained a germplasm line that bears uniform and beautiful crimson-colored flowers. Comparing with the crimson flower donor, the new line has higher yield potential since the length of the pods (averaged 15 cm) and the size of the seeds (averaged 1.3 grams per seed) are almost tripled and doubled, respectively. This new germplasm will be release to the public for variety development in the near future.