Productive response of Phaseolus vulgaris commercial cultivars under drought conditions

Abstract

The selection of drought-tolerant common bean cultivars can be a strategy to minimize the effect of water deficit on yield and bean quality. The aim of the present work was to select common bean cultivars with the best productive response under water stress conditions. For this purpose, an experiment was carried out with three common bean cultivars with red testa (‘Buenaventura’, ‘Velazco Largo’, and ‘Delicias-364’), under different soil moisture conditions at the Cooperativa de Créditos y Servicios (CCS) “Gustavo Ameijeiras”, in the municipality of Limonar, Matanzas. Agricultural yield indicators were evaluated under different irrigation conditions, five irrigations (drought), and 10 irrigations (optimum moisture conditions). With the agricultural yield data, in the two moisture conditions, the percentage of agricultural yield losses, drought intensity index, and drought susceptibility index (ISS) were calculated. It was concluded that drought under experimental conditions produced a direct effect on the agricultural yield of the cultivars and the evaluated indices. The cultivar ‘Delicias-364’ was the most tolerant to water deficit, since it had the lowest percentage reduction in yield and ISS less than one. The cultivar ‘Velazco Largo’ showed the lowest tolerance, with 32% yield loss and an ISS greater than one.

Keywords

• common bean
• yield
• irrigation
• tolerance to drought