International Conference on Environment: Survival and Sustainability 19-24 February 2007 Near East University, Nicosia-Northern Cyprus 467 CLUSTERING OF SOME LOCAL COMMON BEAN (PHASEOLUS VULGARIS L.) GENOTYPES BASED ON CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM Nezihe KOKSAL 1 , Ece TURHAN 2 , Ahmet IPEK 1 , Hatice GULEN 1 , Atilla ERIS 1 1 Uludag University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture, Gorukle 16059 Bursa, Turkey. 2 Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Bayramic Vocational School, 17700 Bayramic, Canakkale, Turkey. nkoksal@uludag.edu.tr Twenty local common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) genotypes that are widely cultivated in Turkey were analyzed in this study. Nineteen of these genotypes were obtained from Aegean Agricultural Research Institute whereas one of them was obtained from Cukurova region in Turkey. The phenotypic characteristics of these genotypes were previously identified but their carbohydrate metabolism was evaluated in this study. In this respect, reducing sugar and sucrose analyses were done in the leaf samples of these genotypes. In addition, sucrose synthase, alkaline invertase and acid invertase activities related to the carbohydrate metabolism were determined to clarify the mechanism. Data indicated the significant differences among the genotypes in both soluble sugars and enzyme activities. In addition, the clustering analyzes suggested that “Kokez” is a unique genotype according to its carbohydrate metabolism. Key Words: Common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, carbohydrate, sucrose synthase, acid invertase Introduction Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important economic food legume widely grown in many countries in the world. Due to the wide geographic diffusion of this crop, it is distributed in very different climatic environments all over the world. Suitable climatically conditions in Turkey have resulted in the rapid production of common bean almost all the region of Turkey. However, marketing problem from standard common bean cultivars is waiting to be solved. The traditional way of common bean cultivation in Turkey is based on small properties and a diversity of cultivars or genotypes allowed an efficient yield (Balkaya and Yanmaz, 1999). Thus some studies on the identification of the traditional genotypes are needed to be done. Studies on the germplasm collection of common bean have been conducted in Turkey as well as many other countries (Maras et al. 2006) due to its economic importance. However, an efficient use of these genetic resources requires an understanding of the structure of variation in the available bean gemplasm collections. Different ways chosen to investigate common bean diversity such as isozyme and morphological (Rodiño et al 2001; Koksal et al 2005), biochemical and molecular (Alvarez et al 1998) and protein (Svetleva et al 2006) analyzes. On the other hand, the importance of carbohydrate metabolism to distinguish genotypes was also reported by early studies in maize (Creech 1965; Gonzales et al 1976).