Near-infrared spectroscopy analysis of seed coats of common beans ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.): a potential tool for breeding and quality evaluation.

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a well-established technique for determining the components of foods. Sample preparation for NIRS is easy, making it suitable for breeding and/or quality evaluation, for which a large number of samples should be analyzed. We aimed to assess the feasibility of NIRS to estimate parameters that seem to influence consumers' perception of the seed coat of common beans: dietary fiber (DF), uronic acids (UA), ashes, calcium, and magnesium. We used reference methods to analyze ground seed coats of 90 common bean samples with a wide range of genetic variability and cultivated at many locations. We registered the NIR spectra on intact beans and ground seed coat samples. We derived partial least-squares (PLS) regression equations from a set of calibration samples and tested their predictive power in an external validation set. For intact beans, only RER values for ashes and calcium are good enough for very rough screening. For ground seed coat samples, the RPD and RER values for ashes (3.49 and 14.09, respectively) and calcium (3.57 and 12.70, respectively) are good enough for screening. RPD and RER values for DF (2.60 and 9.15, respectively) and RER values for magnesium (6.57) also enable rough screening. A poorer correlation was achieved for UA. We conclude that NIRS can help in common bean breeding research and quality evaluation.