Source: VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE submitted to
ENHANCED MID-ATLANTIC SYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-PROTEIN AND STRESS TOLERANT FABA BEAN FOR WINTER PRODUCTION
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1031445
Grant No.
2023-51181-41163
Cumulative Award Amt.
$2,664,745.00
Proposal No.
2023-05670
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2023
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2027
Grant Year
2023
Program Code
[SCRI]- Specialty Crop Research Initiative
Project Director
Balota, M.
Recipient Organization
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
(N/A)
BLACKSBURG,VA 24061
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Our long-term goal is to successfully introduce faba bean as a fall/winter crop with multiple nutritional, environmental, and economical benefits that can make the cropping systems in the mid-Atlantic more sustainable. This will be achieved through identification and further development of winter hardy faba beans with suitable agronomic and quality characteristics for conventional and organic production. This crop with superior nitrogen fixation is an early foraging source for honey bees. We will apply cutting edge genetics and phenomics tools, i.e. DNA-based SNP markers and UAV-based aerial imaging, starting from a 500+ variety panel. This will be followed with optimization of agronomic practices on selected varieties. Nutritional value and consumer acceptance, i.e. seed chemical composition and sensory qualities, will be evaluated on selected varieties recommended for production and further breeding. Extension evaluations in grower fields and across multiple locations in the region will be organized later in the project. With this project, we will set the basis of a trans-disciplinary effort on breeding, genomics, phenomics, agronomics, economics, and stakeholder participation to carry on the current and future research on faba beans. Concurrently, extension programs and communications with industry and local farmer markets will be put in place from year 1 to disseminate research results in the form of on-farm trials, field days, production guides and publications, and digital media. This proposal is relevant to the SCRI strategic goals of maximizing the ability of American producers to prosper economically and strengthen the stewardship of private lands through technology and research.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
50%
Developmental
20%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
20204301081100%
Knowledge Area
202 - Plant Genetic Resources;

Subject Of Investigation
0430 - Climate;

Field Of Science
1081 - Breeding;
Goals / Objectives
Our long-term goal is to successfully introduce faba bean as a fall/winter crop with multiple nutritional, environmental, and economical benefits that can make the cropping systems in the mid-Atlantic more sustainable. With this project, we will set the basis of a trans-disciplinary effort on breeding, genomics, phenomics, agronomics, economics, and stakeholder participation to carry on the current and future research on faba beans. Our current overarching goal is to identify and further develop winter-hardy faba bean populations to complement the current commercial and certified organic production systems in the Mid-Atlantic with (a) a high-protein green and dry vegetable crop for plant-based products and human consumption, (b) superior nitrogen fixation that integrates into current rotations/intercropping systems, and (c) soil-benefic and early pollinator foraging source. We will achieve this goal through multi-disciplinary approaches to address the following objectives:1. Identify faba beans suitable for production in the Mid-Atlantic from a panel of 500+ varieties and development of open-pollinated synthetic cultivars and lines.2. Develop tools for cultivar development, crop management, and reduced environmental footprint through genomics and phenomics including DNA-based SNP markers, high-throughput phenotyping and machine learning.3. Define the major production and environmental concerns and benefits associated with farmers' adoption of faba bean as a new seed and vegetable crop in the Mid-Atlantic, including commercial and certified organic production.4. Optimize the agronomic practices for improved economics of faba bean commercial and certified organic production in the Mid-Atlantic.5.Develop extension education and evaluation, focusing on multiple communication strategies targeting the vertically-integrated production chain to reach a maximum number of stakeholders.
Project Methods
Field studies will be conducted at multiple locations on-station and on-farm in North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and Marryland. Objective-specific trials will be executed. For example, to adress part of Objectives 1 and 2, when seed is limited (years 1 and 2), single row plots will be designed.Each row will be 10-ft. long with 30" row spacing and 2-3 plants per linear ft. Planting will occur in Oct 2023 and estimated harvest of dry seed will occur in June 2023. Before planting, seed will be treated with a slurry of Guard-N® inoculant (Vardesian NUE Solutions ™, Cary NC). The rates of NPK fertilizer will be applied based on soil test results and following the Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations (Wyenandt et al., 2022) for snap beans. Dual Magnum (S-metolachlor) applied preplant incorporated (PPI) at a rate of 1 pint per acre will be utilized for weed control and one spray of Karate (lambda-cyhalothrin) will be applied at flowering, if needed, to control corn earworm and other insect pests. Data collection will focus on days to emergence, stand count, seedling vigor, freeze damage and leaf frost susceptibility (Sallam et al., 2017), days to beginning flowering, days to canopy closure, lodging, dry down, and days to maturity. Wilting, if observed, will be visually rated during May and June. Plots will be continuously monitored for insect pests and disease (Obj. 3.1.). After the frost-free date, winter hardiness will be determined from the number of surviving plants. Genotypes with ≥ 50% surviving plants at all locations will be further evaluated for the agronomic traits in years 2-4, assuming that survival may be influenced by other environmental and management factors and, in different years, survival rate may be higher. Based on preliminary data (please see iii in Introduction), we anticipate that approximately 20 lines from the 500+ accessions will have over 50% winter survival in the Mid-Atlantic. The agronomic traits will include plant height, leaf area index, dry biomass at harvest, number of pods and seed per plant, dry seed weight per plant, 100-seed weight, pod and seed size, and harvest index. These parameters will also be used in connection with Obj. 2 Task 1 & 2. In year 1, all seed will be collected dry for seed multiplication.Each year, plantings will occur in mid-October and plots will be harvested in June of the following year. In year 2, dry seed will be primarily collected to provide a sufficient seed stock for planting agronomic trials in years 3 and 4 under Obj. 3 & 4. In years 2 through 4, samples of pods and seed will be randomly picked for seed chemical composition analysis and sensory evaluations. During year 2, combinations of 4-6 faba bean lines identified as winter-hardy in Obj. 1.1. Task 1 will be grown in isolation plots to develop SYN-1 cultivars.These cultivars will be evaluated for their performance in replicated field trials.Given that the duration of this effort is four years, it will not be possible to conduct a full breeding program.Nutritional and sensory analysis will be performed at the Virginia Tech's Food Science and Technology Lab. Protein, oil, and carbohydrate content, and v-c at Virginia Tech's Food Science and Technology Lab. Perkin-Elmer Inframatic 9500 NIR Grain Analyzers will be used to measure seed protein, oil, and carbohydrates. For v-c content, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method originally published by Quemener et al. (1982) and improved by Quemener (1988) will be used.Sensory tests will be performed in years 3 and 4 to assess consumer acceptability of selected faba bean overwintering genotypes. Sensory participants (50 ≤ N ≤ 100 adult volunteers, untrained) will use a traditional 9-point hedonic scale (1 = "dislike extremely"; 9 = "like extremely") to evaluate overall liking of shelled, cooked faba beans. Samples (maximum of 6 per test to avoid fatigue) will be identified using 3-digit codes and served in a monadic random order to minimize bias.To develop genetic markers, we propose to laveragethe recently developed pseudomolecule level genome assembly for Hedin /2 from the International Faba Bean Genome Consortium (IFBGC, Aarhus) and develop genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approaches to identify high-density SNPs for genetic discovery. Then we will use this platform to genotype the germplasm panel of 500+ faba bean varieties, and conduct genome wide association studies with key agronomic traits within this panel. identification of appropriate restriction enzyme (RE) will be based on select 10-20 phenotypically diverse lines.We will use the GATK pipeline to identify high-quality SNPs from the germplasm panel. Finally, toassociate SNPs with our agronomic traits (winter hardiness, vigor, and biotic & abiotic stress resistance) we will conduct multi-trait genome wide association studies (GWAS).Phenomic tools will be based ona total of 20 imaging missions during the experimental cycle each year using two small UASs. The flight missions will be conducted around solar noon (± 2h) and corroborated with ground evaluations. Vegetation indices will be extracted and compared with the direct measurements.Finally, we will develop and evaluate a range of statistical and machine learning (ML) models to quantify individual and interactive effects of genotype, planting time, weather (air temperature, solar radiation, wind speed, rainfall, and relative humidity), soil climate (soil temperature and moisture), and remotely sensed crop information to predict physiologic, agronomic, and seed quality traits. The statistical models will include: stepwise linear regression, partial least square regression, and LASSO regression. ML models will include among others random forest, logistic regression, support vector machine, artificial neural network (ANN), K-nearest neighbor, and long short-term memory.Data accumulated in years 1 & 2 will be used for model formulation, training (70%), and testing (30%), while data acquired over the 3rd year will be used for model validations and refinements.To determine early pollinator foraging on faba bean, methods from from Marzinzig et al. (2018) will be adapted. Briefly, we will utilize transect walks (i.e., fixed distance routes where the observer moves at a set slow pace through the field and records bees visiting plants) to determine bee species abundance and foraging behavior (e.g., flower visitation, nectar robbing, extrafloral nectary visitation). Observations will be taken during flowering (>10% of plants with flowers) when foraging is likely (>15?, no rain or high winds).Agronomic prectices will be tested using 20 advanced selections from years 1 & 2, 5 lines with the highest yield and protein, seed quality, and early vigor to be used for the agronomic trials under Obj. 4.1. and 4.2. MD, VA and NC, in years 3&4. These trials will be on-station and with on-farm collaborators, and will evaluate important production parameters including at a minimum germination, growth, pod set, winter survival, pest pressure, foliar disease, growth type, dry down, and lodging. These lines will be also evaluated for sensory analysis in year 4. From these lines, we anticipate that 2 or 3 will be recommended for commercial and/or certified organic production by the end of this project.Economic assessment will be performed through construction ofrepresentative budgets for conventional and certified organic production based on agronomic field trials in years 3 & 4.Monte Carlo simulations will also be conducted using @RISK and GAMS to identify risks associated with faba bean production. Representative budgets only provide a single estimate of production cost and do not account for changes in input costs which can vary greatly from year to year.Monte Carlo simulations allow for almost all possible outcomes of production to be examined and provide the likelihood of each outcome.

Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences that benefit from this project include breeders, fellow scientists, certified seed producers, and agricultural producers. Regularly, these audiences are updated on the achievements of this project. Graduate students and post-doc working on this project will benefit through the opportunity to produce knowledge and grow professionally. Currently, one Ph.D. graduate student and one post-doc have been involved with the project from the beginning, and they started in Oct 2023, when the first tests were planted, and in Jan 2024, respectively. Additionally, 2 graduate students have been recently employed and will continue their training and graduate research in relation to this project in the areas of plant pathology and entomology. Through participation in graduate student competitions at professional and extension meetings, and publications, these students will represent an important venue for information produced by this project to be timely distributed to the stakeholders. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One graduate student, Ph.D. level, was hired last summer (2023) to address the phenotypic task of objective 2. He is now completing the course work at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. A post-doc was hired in Jan 2024 to be the manager of this project. This individual has expertise in agronomy and remote sensing and this project will allow him to expand this expertise with new experiences (new crop and agronomics) during the 4 years of this project. Recently 2 new additional MS students were identified to work on the entomology and pathology objectives of the project after fulfilling the course work requirements. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A zoom workshop has been scheduled with growers in the King and Quin Co., VA, on aspects of faba production. The County Extension Agent contacted our team because faba seems to be of recent interest for the community in this county. Similarly, Extension Agent from Prince William Co. VA, had interest and grew faba as a winter crop in his Master Gardners' demonstration garden. Similar interest was shown by a Master Gardner in Christiansburg, VA, and she contacted our team with interest at being part of the research team. She eventually accepted to serve on the Faba Advisory Committee. Our research team member, Bean Beale, from Maryland also cultivated faba in 2023-2024 winter season for a seed company. Contacts have been made and interest exists for this crop for production in the mid-Atlantic. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan on moving along with this project as planned. Probably the difference from the proposal is that agronomic studies will start one year sooner than we planned. For these studies, available commercial cultivars will be used until our breeding team produced enough seed of the most successful accession or new cultivars to be tested. We also contacted the faba bean breeder at the University of Saskatchewan, Crop Development Centre, for germplasm exchange, released cultivar and breeding lines. The PD has scheduled a visit to CDC for this purpose Aug 12 through 16, 2024.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 492 accessions were evaluated at theVirginia State University (VSU), Carvel Research & Education Center (CREC), and Tidewater AREC (TAREC).Due to limited seed, single row plots of 7-feet long with 2 plants per linear ft were plantedon Oct 18, 10 and 9 2023, respectivelyin a lattice design.Harvest of dry seed was from May through end June, with most entries producing fully mature seed in mid-May and mid-June. Before planting, seeds were treated with a granular inoculant from Johnny' s Selected Seeds. A rate of 60-40-80 NPK fertilizer was applied based on soil test results and following the Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations for snap beans at the Tidewater AREC, but not at the other locations. Dual was applied right after planting at a rate of 1 pint/A at CREC, but not at the other locations, where weeding has rather done by hand. Data on stand count, seedling vigor, freeze damage and leaf frost susceptibility, and flowering were collected. Stand counts were taken weekly in Oct-Dec at all locations. From this information the days to beginning and maximum emergence, beginning flowering, and beginning maturity were calculated along with the growth degree days to reach these growth stages using the weather data. Wilting and lodging were not observed on any of the plots and locations in 2024, therefore these data were not collected.In April 2024 winter hardiness was determined. The agronomic traits collected included plant height, number of pods and seed per plant, dry seed weight per plant, and 100-seed weight. At eachlocation, plots similar in size and seeding rate were planted again in mid-March 2024. This planting was envisioned to provide information of faba suitability as a spring crop. This planting was harvested for dry seed only at TAREC and CREC in early July. In general, the crop performed well at all locations. We learned that viable inoculant, weed control at planting, and early management of Chocolate spot diseaseare three main keys for successful faba crop production in the mid-Atlantic. Chocolate spot was more prevalent in Virginia than in Delaware. Beginning emergence was after 2 to 3 weeks after planting in the fall and 2 weeks in spring planting. Emergence was more uniformin the fall than in spring planting. This was probably because of more rainfall and cooler temperatures in Marchthat might have caused seedling dump-off. Seed damage before emergence due to seed maggots was also noted for the spring planting, in particular in fields located in urban areas. This result was general across all locations and, consequently, the number of accessions producing seed was higher in fall than in spring planting. For the fall planting, beginning flowering was observed on a few accessions on Dec 122023at TAREC where, by Jan 30th,50% of accessions bloomed. At CREC, 50% blooming was recorded on March 18. 50% winter survival was recorded for 165 accessions at TAREC, 208 at CREC, and 24% at VSU. Accessions with 80% or more winter survival counted 26 at TAREC, 42 at CREC and 3 at VSU. Winter survival was determined as the ratio of number of surviving plants on April 8, April 1, and April 18 for TAREC, CREC and VSU, respectively, from the maximum emerged seedling in Dec or Jan at each location. 311 accessions produced seed at TAREC, 76 at VSU and almost all 492 at CREC. Some surviving plants were lost due to disease and others bloomed but did not produce pods. Approximately 45 accessions produced enough seed for replicated trials and multiple location planting in 2024, from which around 20 have enough seed for multiplication in larger plots. Data are in the process of analysis. The accessions in spring planting were harvested during the first week of July 2024, at approximately 100 days after planting. They seemed to begin blooming and reach physiological maturity at more similar times in comparison with the fall planting. Several entries bloomed but did not produce seed. The number of seed produced during this planting system was significantly lower than for the fall planting, even though the spring planting plants were regularly, every 7 to 10 days, sprayed for Chocolate spot, unlike the fall planting. Leaf tissue was collected from 482 entries from the VSU fall planting for DNA extraction. However, the quality of extracted DNA was not satisfactory. Because of this, 6 seeds from each of the 492 entries have been made available to the responsible Co-PI. The seed will be planted in pots in the greenhouse for collection of new leaf tissue and extraction of DNA. Several flight missions were conducted at all three locations from Nov through May to collect plot images from bot plantings: 3 at VSU, 5 at CREC, and 14 at TAREC. Th reason why there were fewer flights missions at CREC and VSU was because of the unavailability of drones at these locations so that images were collected solely by Co-PIs at TAREC. It was also related to the difference in planting date, e.g. later planting date at VSU was closer to early seasonal frosts for which the germination and early plant growth were delayed. At the same time, ground data of stand count, plant height, and weed identification were taken. A graduate student will be responsible for developing machine learning models to predict stand count, crop water stress, and identify predominant weed species that a grower will need to know to effectively control weeds in a faba crop. At the same time, images will be used for model development related to frost damage, disease pressure, and plant growth. Co-PIsvisited regularly the variety plots and rated the disease, chocolate spot, severity, and aphid infestation. Insect pests did not seem problematic for either the fall or spring planting and, in addition, beneficial insects seemed to control the pest problematic species very well. For example, during the ground measurements, we noticed a relatively large number of lady beetles on the faba plants. Disease on the other hand, Chocolate spot and seedling dump off, were severe and will require detailed testing for how to be controlled in the future. In the proposal, we planned disease and insect trials for years 3 and 4. Even though agronomic studies were planned for years 3 and 4 in the proposal, a few Co-PIs started experiments to address this objective in 2023 and 2024. One experiment addressed the effect of planting geometry, i.e. double rows versus single rows, and irrigation application, i.e. sprinkler versus drip irrigation, on green seed production. There were three harvests at approximately 10 days interval. Aguadulce and Broad Windsor commercial and large seeded cultivars were used. These cultivars, included in the 492 accessions tested above, were planted in the first week of October and harvests were in May and June at the Virginia Tech' s Hampton Roads AREC, in Virginia Beach, VA. This test showed that double row planting and sprinkler irrigation produced better and healthier plants than single rows and drip irrigation. Also, seeds germinated, and seedlings emerged faster when irrigated by sprinkler than drip tape. A second test was aimed at looking at the effect of spring planting date, seeding rate and row spacing on yield of a commercially available small seeded faba cultivar. The experimental design included 4 planting dates, 2 in April and 2 in May, 3 row spacing, 7.5', 15', and 30', and 3 seeding rates, 120K, 160K and 200K. Unfortunately, a cool and wet April followed by severe drought in May and June resulted in ununiform stands and inconclusive results. This test will be repeated in fall 2024 at the same location of the Eastern Virginia AREC in Warsaw, VA. An extension publication was produced along with several connections with growers interested in faba bean. A zoom meeting is scheduled for Aug 29 for the faba working team members to virtually meet with growers and address questions related to how to grow this crop in the mid-Atlantic.

Publications

  • Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2024 Citation: Ranam, R., Balota, M., Chandel, A., and Jjagew. P. 2024. Faba bean: a multi-purpose crop for the mid-Atlantic USA. Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication. https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/spes/spes-590/SPES-590.pdf
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Submitted Year Published: 2024 Citation: Raman, R., Balota, M., and Ernest E. 2024. Effect of Germination Rate on Winter Survival and Seed Number per Plant of 500 Faba Bean Genotypes Grown in the Mid-Atlantic. Oral presentation at the ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual meeting, San Antonio, TX, Nov 10-13, 2024.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Submitted Year Published: 2024 Citation: Raman, R., Balota. M., Ernest, E., Jjagwe, P., and Chandel, A. 2024.UAS Remote Sensing to Detect Germination Rate and Survival of 500 Faba Bean Genotypes Grown in the Mid-Atlantic. Poster at the SA-CSSA-SSSA Annual meeting, San Antonio, TX, Nov 10-13, 2024.