Culinary and sensory traits diversity in the Spanish Core Collection of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

The Spanish National Plant Genetic Resource Center's core collection of bean germplasm includes 202 accessions selected from more than 3000 accessions in function of passport data, seed phenotype, genetic background, and agronomic traits. To acquire more useful information about these accessions, we cultivated and characterized them for sensory and culinary traits. We found considerable variation for culinary and sensory traits of the cooked beans (mean coefficients of variation: 41% for the sensory traits and 40% for the culinary traits). The large dataset enabled us to study correlations between sensory and culinary traits and among these traits and geographic origin, seed color, and growth habit. Greater proportion of white in the seed coat correlated positively with brightness and negatively with mealiness (r=0.60, r=-0.60, p<0.001, respectively). Mealiness correlated negatively with seed-coat roughness and rate of water absorption (r=-0.60, r=-0.53, p<0.001, respectively). Materials of Andean origin had lower seed-coat brightness (p<0.01) and seed-coat roughness, and greater seed-coat perceptibility, mealiness, flavor, and aroma (p<0.001) than materials of Mesoamerican origin. Growth habit failed to correlate with culinary or sensory traits.