Drought stress in common bean

Drought is becoming more frequent and prolonged due to the present climate variability. Long dry spells during the rainy season are sufficient to reduce agricultural production but worse results are expected with prolonged droughts. In common bean, yield reduction depends of the severity and the period of drought occurrence. In light of the current global and regional trends in climate change, the development of drought-tolerant crop varieties is becoming more relevant in order to mitigate the effects of reduction in water availability. This study generated knowledge on factors that influence drought tolerance in common bean, and elucidated the genetics governing inheritance of this trait in Ugandan bean genotypes through a determination of the levels of drought tolerance in selected local and improved bean genotypes; and established the mechanism of inheritance of drought tolerance.