Identification of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) duplicates using agromorphological and molecular data

We used agromorphological and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) molecular marker data to identify duplicate common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. Fabaceae) accessions in the Common Bean Germplasm Bank of the Agronomical Institute IAC (Banco de Germoplasma de feijoeiro do Instituto Agronômico de Campinas (IAC), SP, Brazil). A total of 116 accessions with the same names and similar agromorphological traits was analyzed. The divergence between the accessions was initially evaluated by means of the agromorphological descriptors using single linkage clustering, from the Euclidean distance. Multivariate analysis identified four duplicate accessions (Carioca Lustroso, Bico de Ouro, Jamapa and Preto), with 17 other same-name accessions being suspected duplicates due to their low divergence levels. Accessions with low genetic distance values (indicating that they were duplicates) were further compared using RAPD markers which confirmed the results of the multivariate analyses in relation to the four duplicate accessions, although only two of the other 17 suspect accessions were confirmed to be duplicates, in this case of accessions IAPAR 57 and Sacavem. These results show that the combined use of agromorphological and molecular information allowed a better characterization of the acessions in the common bean Germplasm Bank.