Climbing beans are vines that can be grown in either monoculture using wooden or
bamboo trellises or in intercropping with other support crops such as maize, but in either case an
important characteristic of climbing beans is their vegetative vigor and climbing ability. A range
of climbing bean architecture exists; some are extremely vigorous producing more biomass at the
top of the plant (type IVb), while others distribute biomass more uniformly across their the
length of their vines (type IVa). Different types are selected by farmers in given situations,
depending on climate, cropping system, harvesting method and growing period. Few studies
have analyzed the inheritance of climbing ability in common bean or analyzed the interaction of
this trait with soil fertility levels. Information about climbing ability and its component traits
could be used by plant breeders to develop climbing bean ideotypes for different production
systems. Therefore one of our research objectives has been to develop methods to analyze
climbing bean growth and apply these to genetic mapping populations. In this research we
analyzed a population of recombinant inbred lines derived from the cross of a climbing bean,
G2333, by a bush bean, G19839, grown under high and low phosphorus treatments, for traits
involved with climbing ability
