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During his career, Muendel collaborated on a number of scien fic studies to improve bean produc on in western Canada. He and Dr. H.C. Huang were the first to detect the presence of the three colour variants of the bean bacterial wilt pathogen Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens in western Canada. This led to the development of a new rapid method for screening dry beans for bacterial wilt resistance. Muendel iden fied resistance to each of the variants of C. flaccumfaciens in dry bean cul vars and advanced breeding lines from western Canada. Together with his colleagues, Muendel also launched a new study to inves gate the inheritance of resistance to bacterial wilt in Canadian dry bean cul vars. This group was also the first to iden fy Erwinia rhapon ci as the pathogen responsible for the pink seed disease in dry beans. Muendel par cipated in a na onal study to use a backcross program and marker-assisted selec on to combine resistance to anthracnose, common bacterial blight and bean common mosaic virus in six different classes of dry bean. He iden fied physiologic resistance to Sclero nia sclero orum and Botry s cinerea in dry bean. In collabora on with Dr. R. Blackshaw, Muendel also conducted agronomic studies on integrated cropping prac ces to improve weed control in dry beans. The tremendous scope of Muendel's research accomplishments is best exemplified by his extensive record of publica ons in scien fic journals and his leadership role on many na onal and interna onal research commi ees and projects. To date, he has published 90 scien fic publica ons, three books, two book chapters and 210 miscellaneous publica ons. He also served as an editor of the refereed proceedings of three scien fic conferences. Muendel has served in various roles in the variety registra on process on the Prairie Registra on Recommending Commi ee for Grain. Muendel's interest in biology stemmed from growing up on orchards in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley where he had se led with his German Bal c family in the early 1950s. "I was interested in agriculture since I was five years old, as long as I can remember," he said. "One of the things that very young kids can do is pick cherries. One year, it was such a heavy apple harvest that we could go a week out of school to help." He went on to earn an undergraduate degree in Agriculture-Plant Science, followed by two Master's degrees and a PhD., as well as gaining a variety of prac cal experience that contributed to the success of the bean breeding program. "I started at the Lethbridge Research Sta on in 1978 with new crops breeding and development," Muendel recalled. "At that me, I was not involved in beans, but I did a whole bunch of other crops, including Dr. Muendel with grower Casey Koomen in a field of AC Black Diamond (le ) and AC Redbond (right). Con nued on Page 18 S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 | 1 7 P U L S E C R O P N E W S

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