Production and disease status of three climbing beans varieties in the monomodal humid forest of Cameroon

The availability of beans at a relatively cheaper price compared to meat and other protein sources cater for the protein requirements of people with low purchasing power. This study was carried out on three climbing beans varieties PNN, DOR 701 and MCX to evaluate growth, yield and disease prevalence across two growing seasons. The design of the experiment was complete randomized block design with the three replicates, 15 plants were randomly selected and tagged from each variety per plot for data collection on growth, yield, diseased incidence and severity. The results showed that irrespective of the planting season, all the growth parameters of the climbers, with the exception of the number of leaves per plant, varied significantly (P = 0.05) with beans variety. The highest plant height (171.6 cm), number of grains per pod was highest (8), the highest pod length (13.3 cm) and the least mean number of branches per plant (4) was recorded with the variety PNN. All yield and yield components were found to vary significantly (P = 0.05) with the bean varieties. The highest yield (3.0 Mg/ha) was recorded by MCX. Disease incidence and severity did not vary significantly (P = 0.05) across varieties. Disease incidence and severity were significantly higher in the early planting season (91.7% and 37.7% respectively) than in the late planting season (69.4% and 16.7% respectively). Cultivation of beans should be done in the late planting season, using MCX variety with high yield.