Common bacterial blight (CBB) and anthracnose are serious diseases of edible bean production in Manitoba and Canada. The current use of the antibiotic streptomycin to control CBB through seed-treatment can have serious concerns/effects on human and/or animal health. Copper compounds (e.g., Kocide) for foliar application have also been used frequently to control CBB, but they are costly and ineffective. Treatment of bean seeds with DCT to control anthracnose is of toxic concerns and also costly. The use of genetic resistance to control these diseases is an environmentally sound and effective approach. Resistance genes/or QTL for these diseases are available in edible beans. Because of the complex genetic control of CBB and the number of resistance genes involved in anthracnose resistance, conventional selection has not been effective in the development of edible bean cultivars for CBB and anthracnose resistance. The use of molecular markers to assist the selection and pyramiding of the genes will speed up the breeding process for multi-disease resistance cultivar development.
