Common Bean Literature Review

1.0 Literature review

1.1 Introduction

The literature reviewed under this chapter provides an evaluative assessment of the taxonomy, origin and botanical description of common bean, benefits of common bean, importance of soil fertility in bean production, fertilizer usage and available recommendations for common bean production in Uganda.

1.2 Taxonomy and origin of the Common Bean

Common bean belongs to Kingdom: Plantae, Subkingdom: Tracheobionta, Subdivision: Spermatophyta, division: Magnoliophyta, Class: Magnoliopsida, Subclass: Rosidae, Order: Fabales, Family: Fabaceae, Genus: Phaseolus L., and species: Phaseolus vulgaris L. (Encyclopedia of life, 2013). Common bean is believed to have been domesticated from a wild form that was found in

They are consumed by schools, prisons, and rural and poor urban dwellers thereby improving nutrition when consumed with maize and rice because of the complementary amino acids (FAO, 1999). Common bean are used in soups, chili dishes, baked bean and casserole recipes, refried bean paste, fresh salads and can be purchased in dried or previously canned and cooked products (Magelanga, 2013). As well as being an excellent food source to people, remains of beans that do not meet human food quality standards can be utilized for livestock. Here, large amounts of splits, culls and poor quality lots of common bean are incorporated into the ration based on actual nutrient content (Kabeere and Wulff, 2008). From a medical standpoint, beans have unusual health benefits ranging from folk medicine to relief of ailments such as: acne diabetes, diarrhoea, eczema, hiccups and

Common beans require fertile soils that are rich in phosphorus and a minimum of nitrogen to give economic yield (Frankow-Lindberg and Dahlin, 2013). However, soils particularly in the central part of Uganda, are very old and deeply weathered; they have inadequate supply of the major plant nutrients, very low nutrient holding capacity and deficiencies or toxicities of trace elements hence becoming less productive (Banadda, 2010; Kaizzi et al., 2012). Available research indicates that declining soil fertility is the foremost constraint to common bean production in the East African region (Wortmann et al., 1998; Mukono District Report, 2010; Gatsby, 2014). This is exacerbated by soil nutrient depletion, soil erosion, nutrient mining, and population pressure which have dwindled per capita common bean production over the past 30 years (Sanchez et al., 1997). Long before 1960s, African farmers cleared land and grew crops for a few seasons and then moved on to clear more land (Bekunda et al., 1997), a practice that left the abandoned soil to fallow, and allowed it to regain its fertility. But, the constant rapid population growth now forces farmers to fragment land and continually plant crops on the same land, mining the soil without replenishing the nutrient pools (NEMA,