Collection DB - David Arthur Bond Collection

Extent: 49 boxes

David Arthur Bond's university and early notebooks, sowing experiment notebooks, working notes, papers, slides, photographs, correspondence etc. regarding broad bean (Vica faba) research and breeding.

Admin History: David Arthur Bond (1929-2017), was born on a farm in Norfolk in 1929. After attending Bungay Grammar School, he took a B.Sc. (1953) and Ph.D. at King's College, Newcastle, University of Durham, graduating with first class honours in crop husbandry. He was awarded a scholarship to work on breeding problems on the field bean and invited to join the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI), Cambridge to develop his PhD thesis on the male sterile, Bean 447. He worked for the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) at Headley Hall, Leeds for one year before joining the PBI in 1957, mainly breeding field beans (Vicia faba), until he retired in 1992. David was among the first to study fava beans at the new department set up by the PBI in the 1950s, 'Much of the present knowledge about the extent of natural crossing, hybrid vigour, male sterility and self-fertility came from those early studies at PBI'. 'Other investigations included closed flowers, auto fertility, terminal inflorescence, semi-determinacy, independent vascular supply, indehiscent pods, the tannin-free gene and zero vicine/convicine'. He worked in the Forage Crops Department of the PBI set up in 1978 to investigate 'breeding methods [and] the interaction of genotypes with environmental factors and the measurement and analysis of interrelationships among various components of forage yield and quality'. David concentrated on bean crops which were needed in Britain as a source of protein and a break from cereal crops. Winter bean crops were particularly successful, including Beaver, Beagle, Bulldog, Bourdon, Punch and Boxer 'all composites based on selected inbreds'. He demonstrated the importance of hybrid vigour in V. faba and discovered a cytoplasmic male-sterile in winter beans together with fertility restoring genes, but after much selection for stable forms of sterility, concluded there was too much reversion to fertility in the field to allow commercial F1 hybrid varieties. Working with Mervyn Pope and G Toynbee Clarke at PBI, he bred a series of composite varieties of winter beans which partially exploited heterosis and were the main varieties of winter beans recommended by N.I.A.B. until after 2000. He collaborated with breeding stations in Europe and at ICARDA (Syria, Egypt and Sudan) and was named as one of the 'two leaders of European legume breeding' in 'David Bond and Jean Picard: Two pivotal breeders of faba bean in the 20th century', G Duc and F Stoddard (2018). He led the UK contingent of the EEC Joint Field Bean Test 1985-7 and wrote many important articles on beans including 'Effect of seed source on performance of faba bean varieties', Bond D.A. & M. Pope, 1984; 'Recent developments in breeding field beans (Vicia faba L.)',1987 and 'Prospects for commercialization of F1 hybrid field beans Vicia faba L.' Bond, DA (1989). He also studied the pollination of beans by solitary bees: 'A study of the pollination mechanism in field beans (Vicia faba L.)', Kambal, AE, Bond, DA and Toynbee-Clarke, G (1976); 'The pollination requirements of the faba bean (Vicia faba L.)', Stoddard, FL and Bond, DA (1987) and 'Anthophora plumipes (Hymenoptera: Anthophoridae) as a pollinator of broad bean (Vicia faba major)', Bond, DA and Kirby, EJM (1999). After retirement he continued writing and publishing articles on the genetics of flower colours and compiling a database of the breeding parentage of faba beans, collaborating with G R A Croften (NIAB) and Dr Gérard Duc (INRA, France) on articles on the absence of tannin in the white flowered field bean: 'History of the winter beans in the UK', Bond, DA and Crofton, GRA (1999) 'Potential seed multiplication problems arising from existence of two genes for the absence of tannin in Vicia faba L.', Crofton, GRA, Bond, DA and Duc, G (2000). He continued breeding broad beans in his own garden, particularly for dwarf growth habit and conducted trials of the Somerset landrace variety, Martock with G R A (Tony) Crofton. David Bond, 'A Brief History of Beans' in Broadcast (PBI Newsletter) issue 7, 1992 PBI Summary of Work in Progress, 1978 NIAB, Vol 16, Special Issue 5 (2018)