Dry bean breeding specialist wins excellence award

Dr. Carlos Urrea, dry edible bean breeding specialist at the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center, was one of the recipients of the 2009 Award for Excellence from the Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors. The award was presented at the 20th biennial meeting of the Bean Improvement Cooperative Oct. 25-28 at Fort Collins, Colo. Urrea and fellow committee members were recognized for “outstanding contributions to Western Region multistate research.”

He is a member of the technical committee for a Project titled “Exotic Germplasm Conversion and Breeding Common Bean for Resistance to abiotic and Biotic Stresses and to Enhance Nutritional Value.” This interdisciplinary, multi-state project (made up of numerous sub-projects) has a goal of developing high-yielding dry-bean cultivars with enhanced culinary and nutritional qualities and resistance to major abiotic and biotic stresses. These cultivars are intended to help reduce production costs and pesticide use, increase yield and competitiveness of the U.S. bean growers, and sustain production for domestic consumption and export.

The project is a confederation of university and USDA scientists, including germplasm specialists, geneticists, plant breeders, pathologists, virologists, nutritionists, and food scientists who together define national and regional problems and coordinate activities among diverse disciplines in technology development and problem solving in beans.

According to the team members, the problem identification and research activities made possible through multistate cooperation has resulted not only in traditional outputs (cooperative trials and scientific publications, training of graduate students and enhanced germplasm and cultivars), but also in direct impacts to growers, processors and consumers on yield, sustainability, economic improvement, food safety, and human nutrition.