Loss of pod strings in common bean is associated with gene duplication, retrotransposon insertion and overexpression of PvIND.

Fruit development has been central in the evolution and domestication of flowering plants. In common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), the principal global grain legume staple, two main production categories are distinguished by fibre deposition in pods: dry beans, with fibrous, stringy pods; and stringless snap/green beans, with reduced fibre deposition, which frequently revert to the ancestral stringy state. Here, we identify genetic and developmental patterns associated with pod fibre deposition.