U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
3-2017
Citation
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BEAN IMPROVEMENT COOPERATIVE, No. 60, March 2017. Published by USDA.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Long cooking time is a major constraint to domestic bean consumers and the processing industry in eastern Africa because it requires more energy, time and increases the cost of production of processed dry bean products, and reduces their competitiveness with other grain legumes. Cooking time of dry beans can vary from 1½ to 8 hours depending on variety (Miles and Sonde, 2004; Kimani et al, 2005). However, little has been done to develop fast cooking bean varieties in eastern Africa (Kimani et al, 2005). Breeding fast cooking bean is now critical due to strong preference for fast cooking and processed foods especially in urban communities. Cooking time of commercial bean varieties grown in eastern Africa under controlled or comparable conditions is not known. Such information will provide a baseline against which improvement in cooking time can be measured. Our objective was to compare the cooking time of commercial varieties and new advanced bean lines selected for fast cooking at the University of Nairobi.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Cooking time of 34 bean genotypes were determined using a Mattson cooker in the Food Science laboratory, Upper Kabete campus, University of Nairobi. The genotypes included 10 popular commercial varieties, seven recently released biofortified varieties and 17 advanced lines of diverse market classes selected for fast cooking (Table 1). The study genotypes represented the Andean and Mesoamerican gene pools and the major market classes grown in east, central and southern Africa. Beans were for soaked for 16 hours before cooking. Each trial was replicated three times. Data was analysed using Genstat software (v15).
Comments
U.S. government work.