The dry bean harvest is underway across the Panhandle. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center in Scottsbluff, Carlos Urrea, UNL dry bean breeder, has been hand-selecting dry bean plants for research. Urrea and his team go into the fields before harvest and pull out the dry bean plants with desired traits.
“We have been selecting for earliness, plant architecture, and also for common bacterial blight resistance,” he said.
The dry edible beans in Urrea’s plots are fourth generation and include pintos, great northern, and cranberries. He and his team of undergraduate students and summer workers are threshing the beans. Some of the pods have common bacterial blight. Those beans are rejected if the plant has more than 20 to 30 percent of blight.
