Breeding of Major Legume Crops through Conventional and Molecular Techniques

Abstract

Legume crops are universally applicable for human and animal food and sustenance because of their relatively high protein and essential amino acid content. Furthermore, they have been linked to sustainable agriculture, noting their ability to bind to atmospheric nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Despite this, several technical limitations of leguminous crops keep their world production far behind that of cereals. This chapter of the book focuses on current developments in breeding and biotechnology of major legume crops. Conventional breeding has primarily set out to recover a number of vegetative and reproductive traits that are associated with different heritability values, which reflect how susceptible each character is to genetic improvement. In conclusion, legume breeding programs using classical breeding methods and biotechnological tools face a promising boost for further application of knowledge and information that may boost their overall production. In plant breeding, the development of improved crop varieties is limited by very long periods of cultivation. Therefore, to increase crop breeding efficiency, they are using new strategies such as high-throughput phenotyping and molecular breeding tools. In this chapter, recent findings on various aspects of crop improvement, plant breeding practices, to explain the development of conventional and molecular techniques.