By Chabella Guzman, PREEC Communications
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center (PREEC) in Scottsbluff researches various western Nebraska crops throughout the year. However, the center does more than just research crops and livestock. It also educates students and scholars from Nebraska and around the world.
Shida Nestory, a short-term scholar from Tanzania, came to Scottsbluff to study dry beans with Dr. Carlos Urrea, Nebraska Extension dry bean breeder at the UNL Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center. Nestory is a crop research officer at the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI). The department is responsible for all agricultural research activities conducted by the National Agricultural Research System (NARS).
Dry beans are one of the staples of the Tanzanian diet. As in western Nebraska, the country can be challenged by droughts. “We are challenged with the climate, where once there was rain, now at the moment we are not getting enough,” he said. Urrea’s work with drought-tolerant dry beans was of interest to Nestory. He helped in the lab by measuring soil moisture and its effects on the plant. “This measuring is good, so when you take the material (seed) to farmers, you are confident that it withstands low moisture.”
Nestory also spent some mornings and afternoons in the greenhouse, planting and making selections to advance the plants of promising dry bean lines for further testing, hoping that the lines would create a hardy, drought-tolerant bean plant.
The team also worked with slow-darkening beans, specifically pintos. These varieties have been bred for brightness. Typically, pinto beans are white with brown spots. However, the white areas can darken when exposed to light through their plastic packaging in stores. The trait is something Nestory would like to integrate into some of the native dry beans of Tanzania. “Farmers would be able to store their harvest a bit longer to sell at the right price,” he said.
The varieties must look pleasing on the shelf and cook promptly. In Urrea’s lab, cookers are explicitly designed to measure the cooking rates of the beans. The beans in the research cookers are not consumed, but Nestory did sample some pintos. “In Tanzania, we have different types of beans. I cooked some pinto beans. They were very delicious and took short time to cook,” he said. “I would like to introduce varieties into Tanzania. They would be good product.”
Nestory left Nebraska in November but took with him ideas on growing a more resilient dry bean in Tanzania and creating collaborations.
“It is important to have collaborations between the researchers and the traders (elevators).” He went with Urrea to visit elevators and growers, where they discussed the research at the center. “He collaborates from the beginning when developing the varieties before they go to the market. In the end. We are serving the consumers and the farmers who are the beneficiaries.”