Faculty
The Field Bean Breeding Program at the University of Guelph was initiated in 1977. The work has been supported by funding from the Ontario Ministry for Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, the Ontario White Bean Producer’s Marketing Board, and the Ontario Coloured Bean Growers, which became the Ontario Bean Growers in 2013. In the early years, variety development at the University of Guelph was focused on white beans.
The first bean publicly released from the program was Ex Rico 23, a navy bean released in 1980. An important milestone was the release of the first CBB (Common Bacterial Blight) resistant navy bean in Canada, OAC Rex in 2001. This variety was developed from an interspecific cross between a cultivated bean and a wild bean species. Ex Rico and OAC Rex were cited in the Seed of the Year Award for 2012.
Dynasty Dark Red Kidney Bean In 2006, the Bean Breeding Program expanded its research to include Kidney Beans. One such bean, Dynasty, made waves almost a decade after its initial release, by winning the Seed of the Year Award in 2022. In some years, Dynasty represents 90% of Dark Red Kidney Bean acreage in Ontario.Read More
In 2009, the University of Guelph, the Ontario Bean Producers Marketing Board, the Ontario Coloured Bean Growers, and Agriculture Agrifood Canada (AAFC) signed an agreement to develop a consolidated AAFC/UofG bean breeding program for Ontario, located at the University of Guelph. This agreement was not renewed after 2014, and the University of Guelph managed the sole bean breeding program in Ontario until 2016, when bean breeding was reinitiated in AAFC (Harrow).
The current Bean Breeding Program at the University of Guelph makes 200 or more crosses, advances 800 F2-F5 families and 3,500 rows from single plants, conducts preliminary and advanced yield trials on white and coloured beans (14 trials with 40-60 lines each in two locations). Together with other researchers in the University of Guelph and Agriculture Agri-Food Canada the bean breeding personnel T Guelph conduct the Ontario Registration and Performance Trials to identify and develop new registered bean varieties for Ontario bean growers.
Technicians
