Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L) landraces from Abruzzo and Lazio regions (Central Italy).

Marginal areas of Central Italy, i.e., areas where socio-economic conditions are weak and agriculture iscarried on with traditional farming methods, are known to retain highly interesting local legume populations.The variation within a collection constituted by 44 populations belonging to 19 common bean(Phaseolus vulgaris L.) landraces, recently collected in Central Italy, was studied. Most landraces from theLazio region were collected in the inner valleys of Aniene river basin, those from the Abruzzo region werecollected in the Valley Peligna and the basin of the Aterno-Pescara river. Some morphological traits of plantand seeds and the phaseolin pattern were analysed to evaluate the degree of genetic variation among andwithin the landraces. Both common bean gene pools were represented in the investigated collection, thepopulations belonging to Andean gene pool were predominant. The landraces 'Cioncone', from Lazio and'Fagiolo pane aquilano', from Abruzzo showed the rare A phaseolin type. All the collected data weresubmitted to cluster analysis. Two main subgroups were identified, the former included mainly populationsfrom Abruzzo region and the latter including all the others. Despite this, a considerable resemblance existsbetween the common bean landraces from Abruzzo and Lazio, as proved by the low rankings on the treeamong the populations. The observed similarity is discussed also on the basis of historical relationshipsbetween the two sides of the Apennine ridge.