Unlocking the hidden variation from wild repository for accelerating genetic gain in legumes

Abstract

The fluctuating climates, rising human population, and deteriorating arable lands necessitate sustainable crops to fulfil global food requirements. In the countryside, legumes with intriguing but enigmatic nitrogen-fixing abilities and thriving in harsh climatic conditions promise future food security. However, breaking the yield plateau and achieving higher genetic gain are the unsolved problems of legume improvement. Present study gives emphasis on 15 important legume crops, i.e., chickpea, pigeonpea, soybean, groundnut, lentil, common bean, faba bean, cowpea, lupin, pea, green gram, back gram, horse gram, moth bean, rice bean, and some forage legumes. We have given an overview of the world and India’s area, production, and productivity trends for all legume crops from 1961 to 2020. Our review article investigates the importance of gene pools and wild relatives in broadening the genetic base of legumes through pre-breeding and alien gene introgression. We have also discussed the importance of integrating genomics, phenomics, speed breeding, genetic engineering and genome editing tools in legume improvement programmes. Overall, legume breeding may undergo a paradigm shift once genomics and conventional breeding are integrated in the near future.

Editorial: Harnessing genebanks: High-throughput phenotyping and genotyping of crop wild relatives and landraces

“…Therefore, an improved roadmap to address these bottlenecks with modern technologies is a prerequisite for their effective utilization (Figure 1). A first pivotal research avenue worth considering is mining phenotypic and genetic variation hidden within CWR and landraces (Singh et al, 2022) through extended sampling targeting isolated pockets of cryptic diversity (Ramirez-Villegas et al, 2020), robust ecological data curation (Waldvogel et al, 2020b) [e.g., targeting specific abiotic stresses such as drought (Corteś and Blair, 2018) and heat tolerance (Loṕez-Hernańdez and Corteś)], dense linkage disequilibrium (LD) guided genomic characterizations (Blair et al, 2018), and geographicwide agronomical (Osterman et al 2022) and physiological (Conejo-Rodriguez et al) trials across diverse germplasm and environments [recently referred to as enviromics (Costa-Neto and Fritsche-Neto, 2021;Crossa et al, 2021;Resende et al, 2021)].…”

“…However, new strategies for genebank utilization must be empowered in order to meet increasing global food demand (McCouch, 2013;Bohra et al, 2021) with crop alternatives resilient to climate change, sustainable to the environment and the biodiversity, and profitable for communities (Scherer et al, 2020). Therefore, in order to contribute filling this gap on genebank mining, this Research Topic compiles recent developments able to speed up crop improvement processes by leveraging high-throughput phenotyping and genotyping of crop wild relatives (CWR) and landraces (Singh et al, 2022). As discussed in the next section, the amassed works innovate different steps of genebank characterization, utilization, and allelic deployment, including germplasm identification, conservation, pre-breeding screening for genepool diversity and associated markers, and introgression breeding.…”

Tackling the Constraints of Cumin Cultivation and Management Practices

“…There is no management for dew is available but irrigation of the crop and arrangement of smoke can be a probable solution to this problem. Drought, fluctuating temperature and frost effect on any stage of crop growth, utilizing the advance and integrate breeding tools is a good way to cope up with these constraints [110,111].…”

Meta‐analysis of the quantitative trait loci associated with agronomic traits, fertility restoration, disease resistance, and seed quality traits in pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.)

“…It is the sixth most important grain legume crop grown, specifically, by resource‐constrained farmers in the semiarid and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa. Pigeonpea is a climate‐resilient and less resource‐demanding legume crop with a rich source of proteins, essential amino acids, and minerals (Jorrin et al., 2021; Singh, Gudi, et al., 2022).…”

“…Furthermore, pigeonpea production faces a number of biotic stresses such as Fusarium wilt and sterility mosaic disease (SMD), which ultimately affect the production potential of this crop (Singh, Singh, et al., 2020). Plant breeders are concerned with combining multiple yield‐related traits (Singh, Gudi, et al., 2022; Singh, Kaur, et al., 2022). A paradigm shift may occur in the near future if the conventional breeding (pre‐breeding, and alien gene introgression) approaches are integrated with modern breeding tools (such as genomics, phenomics, speed breeding, genetic engineering, haplotype‐based breeding, allele mining, and genome editing) (Bakala et al., 2020; Gudi, Kumar, et al., 2022).…”