Droughts in Mexico reduce agricultural production and cause major damage to livelihoods, costing £billions to the economy. Mexico’s reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and its arid zones, makes it vulnerable to drought, yield loss, and soil degradation. Mexico’s geography, population, and urbanisation with habitat loss, make it exposed to the effects of overexploitation of resources, droughts, and climate change. Common bean is the most important grain legume in human diets, and a major source of nutrition. Mexico is a centre of origin, domestication, and diversity for beans, and they are central to Mexican culture and Latin American and African food security. Drought stress is a major concern because most bean agriculture is rain-fed, not irrigated. The development of novel bean varieties and production of beans with greater climate change resilience will impact positively on the poorest communities reliant on timely rains, as well as global Food Security. The overall objectives are to identify mechanisms of drought tolerance from the related desert species, tepary bean, and translate these into common beans to improve water deficit resistance. Characterising drought responses through developmental, physiological, and transcriptomic analyses will help us understand divergent approaches to stress resilience. Stomata are microscopic valves on leaf and pod surfaces that control water loss and CO2 uptake for photosynthesis. By altering stomatal traits such as size and density, we can improve water use efficiency. In this project we compared stomatal traits across beans and used this information to enhance drought resilience to begin creating ‘Climate Smart’ bean crops for Latin American agriculture. By improving water use of bean crops, we can promote more resilient systems of production under climate change, improve economic securities for farmers and maintaining sustainable sources of healthy food.
