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Alongside the use of fertilizer and chemical control of weeds, pests, and diseases modern breeding has been very successful in generating cultivars that have increased agricultural production several fold in favorable environments. These typically homogeneous cultivars (either homozygous inbreds or hybrids derived from inbred parents) are bred under optimal field conditions and perform well when there is sufficient water and nutrients. However, such optimal conditions are rare globally; indeed, a large proportion of arable land could be considered marginal for agricultural production. Marginal agricultural land typically has poor fertility and/or shallow soil depth, is subject to soil erosion, and often occurs in semi-arid or saline environments. Moreover, these marginal environments are expected to expand with ongoing climate change and progressive degradation of soil and water resources globally. Crop wild relatives (CWRs), most often used in breeding as sources of biotic resistance, often also possess traits adapting them to marginal environments. Wild progenitors have been selected over the course of their evolutionary history to maintain their fitness under a diverse range of stresses. Conversely, modern breeding for broad adaptation has reduced genetic diversity and increased genetic vulnerability to biotic and abiotic challenges. There is potential to exploit genetic heterogeneity, as opposed to genetic uniformity, in breeding for the utilization of marginal lands. This review discusses the adaptive traits that could improve the performance of cultivars in marginal environments and breeding strategies to deploy them.

Trabajo presentado en el 9th International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics (IGLCC 2019), delebrado en Dijon del 13 al 17 de mayo de 2019., Lentil has three primary macro-environmental adaptation groups, determined by photoperiod and temperature: spring-sown northern temperate (e.g. Northern Great Plains of Canada and USA), fall-sown mediterranean (e.g. Turkey, Spain, Morocco) and post-rainy season, sub-tropical savannah (e.g. South Asia). Genotypes from one region often fail to perform in the others due to problems related to phenology. Of key importance is the effect of local environment, such as daylength and temperature, on the plant’s ability to flower and set seeds. Breeders are reluctant to use un-adapted germplasm from other regions as parents in crosses, because this strategy requires additional time and resources to reduce the influence of the genes related to poor adaptation. To better understand the genetics underlying adaptation in a field environment, we grew a panel of 324 diverse lines in 9 locations around the globe for a total of 19 site-years. Genotypes flowered quickly in Saskatchewan, very slowly in the Mediterranean region, and in South Asia, genotypes from Canada and other regions with long-days did not flower or did not set seed due to the extreme temperatures at the end of the usual growing season. Interactions with both temperature and photoperiod were evident but not all genotypes responded similarly. Some were early to flower everywhere, some were late everywhere and there were those that responded differently depending on the location. We genotyped all lines using an exome capture array [1], resulting in over 250K markers. Using a GWAS approach we were able to identify several regions of the genome that were associated with flowering time at each of the locations. Some were unique to short-day environments and others to long-day. Candidate flowering time-associated genes were identified and are being tested in bi-parental and NAM populations to confirm their utility for breeding programs.

WOS: 000403032200007, Lentil is one of the most important grain legumes, which plays a significant role in human nutrition and animal feed through the world. In developing countries, the prohibitively high cost of meat has rendered, lentil, with its high seed protein and essential amino acid content, important source of dietary protein. In this research, 181 lentil advanced lines (F-7 generation) of Karacadag x Silvan and Karacadag x cagil 2004 crosses were evaluated for grain yield, yield components and seed mineral concentrations in two diverse environments in Turkey. Considerable diversity was observed with regard to yield components and seed mineral concentrations in the advanced lentil lines. The greatest phenotypic diversity was observed in the biological yield, number of pods and weight of pods per plant, the number of seeds and weight of seeds per plant, and seed Ca, Zn and Fe concentrations. Grain yield per plant was significantly positively correlated with the biological yield per plant, number of pods per plant, weight of pods per plant, and number of seeds per plant. Plant grain yield and yield components were strongly positively correlated with seed potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and zinc (Zn) concentrations but was negatively correlated with Fe concentration. In conclusion, promising lentil advanced lines for the grain yield, yield components and mineral concentrations could be evaluated for developing new lentil varieties and spesific breeding purposes., Scientific Research Project Unit of cukurova University [KMYO2013BAP1]; Scientific and Technical Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) [1140562], Thank to Scientific Research Project Unit of cukurova University supporting this research (Project no: KMYO2013BAP1) and to Scientific and Technical Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for its support for another investigation partly associated with this research (project no: 1140562). Also thank to Prof. Dr. Ayfer TORUN and Prof. Dr. Selim EKER from Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition for their assistance seed mineral concentration analysis.

The International Pea Genome Consortium Pea (Pisum sativum L.) has long been a model for plant genetics. It is also a widely grown pulse crop producing protein-rich seeds in a sustainable manner. Thanks to large national and international programs, and driven by innovations in sequencing technology, informatics and biotechnology, many genomic resources are now available for pea. An atlas of the expression of its genes in many tissues, high density genetic mapping, and the ongoing sequencing of its genome have provided useful tools for dissecting traits of interest. We will present how the pea genome draft sequence opens the way to explore genetic diversity of pea.

BAP GEAPSI BAP GEAPSIBAPGEAPSI; Common root rot, caused by the oomycete Aphanomyces euteiches, is a major soil borne disease of pea in many countries. The large pea genomic and plant resources recently developed have deepened the knowledge of genetics of partial resistance to A. euteiches. A dedicated panel of Aphanomyces genetic resources genotyped with a 13K-SNP array (Tayeh et al, 2015) was used in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of partial resistance. Results identified a total of 52 small sized LD-based confidence intervals associated with the resistance, including 14 consistent QTL regions at which marker haplotypes were defined from the panel (Desgroux et al, 2016). This study validated six of the seven main resistance QTL previously identified, for which Near- Isogenic-Lines (NILs) were created by back-cross assisted selection (Lavaud et al, 2015). The fingerprint of the NILs using the 13K-SNP array showed that QTL introgressions could cover several smaller GWAS intervals, suggesting the presence of several linked genes or a single imprecisely located locus underlying a QTL. The genomic location of the major QTL Ae-Ps7.6, which effect was confirmed on slowing down symptom appearance and root colonization by the pathogen (Lavaud et al, 2016), was refined by GWAS and fine mapping. The unprecedented genomic resources recently developed in pea provide new markers closely-linked to Aphanomyces resistance loci, for accelerating progress in breeding future pea resistant varieties.