Tepary Bean History

Tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) is an ancient crop native to Mexico, the South-western United States and parts of Central America (Bhardwaj, 2013). Recent studies indicate that tepary bean was most likely domesticated near the Mexico-USA border with earliest remains found in Tehuacán Valley, Mexico (Blair et al., 2012). The crop has been reported as still being found growing in the wild as far south as Guatemala and as far north as central Arizona (Muñoz et al., 2004).
The crop has recently gained recognition as a drought tolerant and short duration legume in semi-arid parts of tropical Africa where most other grain legumes fail (Porch et al., 2013). Tepary bean is grown in Morocco, Algeria, Malawi, Botswana, Uganda, South Africa as well

Occasionally, it is eaten as fresh green beans or as bean sprouts. Bhardwaj and Hamama, (2004) reported that tepary bean leaves are considered edible in some parts of Africa but are tougher than those of common bean and take longer to cook. Furthermore, the stover can be used for animal feed. In Botswana, the grain is commonly used as supplementary feed for poultry (Bhardwaj and Hamama, 2005). Tepary bean grain is potentially useful in chemotherapy for treating cancer due to the presence of lectin toxins and other compounds (De Mejia et al., 2005). Moreover, legume lectins have been shown to exhibit anti-tumour properties by inducing programmed cell death (apoptosis) and autophagy (Lei and Chang,

Previous studies demonstrated the successful creation of genetic variability for several agronomic traits in many crop species using mutation breeding (Parveen, 2006; Patil et al., 2004). However, the use of mutation breeding approaches such as chemomutagenesis for widening the genetic base of tepary bean has not been investigated adequately in order to be applied in the genetic improvement of the crop. Successful creation of genetic variation for root nodulation and seed protein will accelerate the breeding for new cultivars that can be adopted by tepary bean growers.
1.4 Objectives of the study
The broad objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of induced mutation on root nodulation traits and seed protein in tepary bean. The specific objectives of the study were to.
(i) determine the effect of induced mutation by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) on the root nodulation traits of tepary bean
(ii) determine the effect of induced mutation by EMS on the quantity of seed protein of tepary bean
(iii) Determine the effect of induced mutation by EMS on the profiles of seed protein in tepary bean.
1.5 Hypotheses
The study tested the following