**Acknowledgements**

The remarkable variability of Serro Azul and the interesting association with glossy seeds (SAB) with resistance to anthracnose and bruchids raises further research questions and opportunities for new crosses. As previously suggested, seed coat glossiness might after all have an important role in protecting seeds against biotic stresses, as SAB has shown. Conversely, we have not demonstrated that the disease resistance of SAB plants has association with glossiness, which needs more experiments. Either way, this is an important feature which might be explored in depth with the population derived from this landrace to appropriately answer this question. Landraces such as Serro Azul hold particularities that should not be disregarded, after all, local communities need those seeds for their supply, and they have traits of high interest to be explored by breeders, especially concerning the threat of anthracnose and insects

From this example to a wider set of landraces, several traits of interest might be improved with the use of distinct allele combinations if not new alleles provided by such genetic materials. Burle et al. [24] analyzed 279 landraces of common bean from Brazil and discovered considerable genetic diversity among all the accessions evaluated. Those genotypes are distributed from colder to warmer and from wetter to drier areas in the country. The local adaptation implicated in such genotypes has implicated in potential sources of disease and insect-resistant accessions. Moreover, the climatic diversity provides the potential for adapting to distinct abiotic stresses. New sources for tolerance to drought, soil salinity, high and low temperatures are to be investigated from these collections. In fact, Burle et al. [10] continued the previous work and integrated phenotypic evaluations to the genetic analysis of the same 279 landraces. The authors screened these accessions based on 22 morphological traits, including resistance to rust and common bacterial blight, yield, flowering time, determinacy and growth habit, seed coat color and brilliancy, among others. The study provided valorous information for supporting initiatives toward conservation and management of the accessions. It also allowed to detect the particularities of landraces and how they can be explored

In this chapter, we described the importance of the conservation and study of landraces of common bean. As an example, to go through the extent of morphological, biochemical and genetic aspects of landraces, we outlined the previous results as well as the new findings about the Brazilian landrace Serro Azul. This landrace has been produced by local farmers from Sao Paulo state and has remarkable features for exploring variation of seed and yield traits in common bean, constituting an additional and valuable genetic resource for germplasm collections. We also showed a genetic diversity analysis of Serro Azul by examining the molecular variability within subsamples of SAB and SAF, based on amplified fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) markers. Furthermore, a detached leaf assay for screening anthracnose resistance was employed for both variants within this landrace, revealing remarkable differences between the highly resistant Serro Azul Brilhante (glossy seed coat) and the susceptible Serro Azul Fosco (opaque seed coat). Together, these results demonstrated the importance of

in controlled crosses for designing new populations and cultivars.

to common bean cultivation.

190 Rediscovery of Landraces as a Resource for the Future

**7. Conclusions**

We thank Monica Rossi Lanzoni and Prof. Adriana Pinheiro Martinelli for their assistance in the microscopy analyses. We also thank the assistance and materials provided by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas for performing the analyses with the races of *C. lindemuthianum* and the valorous technical assistance of Ana Luiza Ahern Beraldo in the experiments. The results presented in this chapter received funding from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
