Beans are a key protein source for large parts of the world population, but bean plant cultivation is threatened by adverse climatic conditions. Breeding aims at improving future bean varieties for better yield performance under environmental stress. Researchers at the Mexican Colegio de Postgraduados Institute applied a LemnaTec LabScanalyzer in combination with the LemnaTec analytical software LemnaGrid to address growth, plant phenology and greenness of bean cultivars under water limitation (Padilla-Chacón et al. 2019). LemnaTec’s digital tools can quantify the stay-green phenotype versus leaf senescence severity in the comparison of bean cultivars. Together with quantitative data on growth and morphology, digital phenotyping data comprehensively describe the cultivar-specific responses to water limitation. These data have an outstanding value for future breeding efforts.

Images courtesy of COLPOS.

Padilla-Chacón D, Peña Valdivia CB, García-Esteva A, Cayetano-Marcial MI, Kohashi Shibata J (2019) Phenotypic variation and biomass partitioning during post-flowering in two common bean cultivars (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) under water restriction. South African Journal of Botany 121:98–104 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629918307671?via%3Dihub