Collection and phenotypic characterisation of pole-type common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) landraces from Mizoram

Common beans are one of the many important food legumes grown in India. In the hilly regions of north-eastern India farmers mostly grow the pole-type beans by intercropping beans with maize, and in backyardsand kitchen gardens. In this study, we characterized a set of 52 pole-type common bean landraces collectedfrom the state of Mizoram for 23 agro-morphological and quality traits. Remarkable variability was observedfor almost all the traits. Wide range of variability was found for the traits such as leaf length (7.5–18.0 cm), leafbreadth (6.2–12.8 cm) days to flowering (33–70 days), pods per plant (7.7–24.0), pod length (8.1–14.6 cm), podyield per plant (61.5–182.3 g), seeds per pod (4.6–8.0), 100-seed weight (23.0–50.1 g) and crude protein content(20–33.8%). Positively significant correlation coefficients were observed between 100-seed weight and daysto flowering; number of pods per plant and pod yield per plant. The patterns of morphological variation wereassessed using multivariate approaches. Five morphologically distinct clusters were identified within thecollected germplasm. The evolutionary grouping of the common bean landraces has been discussed consideringthe morphological features.