Establishment of a Core Collection of Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Germplasm in the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is one of the most important food legumes worldwide. The development of a core collection could facilitate easier access to bean genetic resources and enhance their applications in crop improvement program. In this article development of a core collection from 1425 accessions of common bean germplasm available from the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran (NPGGBI) was described. Accessions were clustered by Ward`s method based on geographical origin and 17 qualitative morphological traits data. Some accessions randomly selected from each cluster according to origin of construct core collection. Mean comparisons using Mann-Whitney U test, variances comparison by Leven's test and comparison of frequency distribution by X2 test indicated that core collection was similar to whole collection. The Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H (were also confirmed the similarity of collection and core collection based on different traits.