Bean Golden Mosaic Virus (BGMV) is one of the major biotic causes of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) crop losses in Brazil. This geminivirus is transmitted by the whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) and causes severe foliar yellow mosaic symptoms, stunted growth in plants, deformation of pods and grains, and abortion of flowers. The losses in grain yield may range from 40 to 100%. It has been estimated that at least 200,000 ha became impractical for bean growth in Brazil due to the BGMV. Annual losses in the country, ranging between 90 and 280 thousand tons of grain, would be enough to feed from six to 20 million adult Brazilians. Effective resistance has not been identified in P. vulgaris germplasm from over 40 years of conventional breeding efforts in Brazil. Insecticide spraying has been overused to control the whitefly aiming to prevent the virus incidence, but with limited success and serious environmental concerns. For this reason, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) developed a genetically engineered dry bean resistant to the BGMV. Biosafety assessment assays had already been performed according to the rules established by the Brazilian Government and, therefore, the virus resistant bean was approved for commercial growth in Brazil in September 2011. The transgenic common bean will be available soon for the domestic market after the final field trials to evaluate the agronomic performance of the advanced lines are finished. These field trials, which are required for the registration of new cultivars in Brazil, have been conducted since 2012 in a national assay network coordinated by Embrapa. After this process, the superior line will be commercially released as the first common bean transgenic cultivar in the world. Partial results of final field trials and considerations for commercialization will be presented and discussed.

Genetically engineered virus resistant common bean developed by Embrapa (Brazil): Partial results of final field trials and considerations for commercialization

248th National Meeting (2014)

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