Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** currently, the most important…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** currently, the most important source of plant protein for human consumption is common bean. However, common bean production is increasingly limited geographically due to its sensitivity to high temperatures and its susceptibility to diseases including the impact of climate change on disease and pest pressure. However, resistance to a number of common bean diseases is present in tepary bean which can be rapidly introgressed through bridging lines. Tepary bean is native to hot, dry environments and has been grown in marginal agricultural regions for food production for thousands of years. However, scaling-up of tepary bean production is limited by its lack of amenability to modern agricultural production practices. While IT took 50-100 years of modern breeding to develop common bean lines compatible with large-scale agricultural practices, the advent of genomics and advanced breeding methods, when coupled with a deep knowledgebase of gene function within the legumes, rapid development of both improved tepary and common bean germplasm can be accomplished thereby accelerating breeding timelines and the incorporation of genetic gains into production agriculture. In this project, we will transform common and tepary bean breeding by exploiting their close relationship with the development of a database that permits rapid trait discovery and subsequent breeding between the two species through genomics-enabled breeding.