Investment

Faba bean contains a number of anti-nutritional factors (ANF) in the seed and these can limit their use, both in the range of products and the amount included in some products. The most abundant group of faba antinutritional compounds are the glycosidic aminopyrimidine derivatives; vicine and convicine often collectively labelled as VC that are known to negatively affect the nutritional quality and bioavailability of nutrients. The VC complex can be minimised or eliminated through breeding, however testing for VC is complex and time consuming which necessitates the development of a simplified method. Maintaining the low concentration of VC is important because the consumption of faba beans with high concentrations of VC by humans with hereditary low concentrations of glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase can result in an acute haematoma resulting in severe bleeding within 12 hours of eating faba beans. This condition is often referred to as favism. For Australia maintaining low concentrations of VC in new faba bean varieties is important because Australia exports to many countries affected by this genetic defect. This project will develop a fast and improved method for measuring VC. The project will be undertaken by Agriculture Victoria Research in collaborating with the University of Adelaide faba-bean breeding program for accessing and evaluating advanced breeding lines and germplasm. The project will also investigate if environmental-stress conditions in the field can result in an increase in VC within faba beans. A simplified method for determining VC in faba beans will allow plant breeders to cost-effectively test a wider, more diverse range of germplasm in their quest to develop high yielding varieties for Australian growers.