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The "100‐seed weight (100‐SW)" trait is an important component of soybean quality and yield. Phosphorus (P) deficiency induces a wide array of metabolic effects that limits plant growth, especially in soybean. In this study, the 100‐SW values of a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population constructed by a cross between "Zhongdou27" and "Jiunong20" were evaluated in three tested environments under regular P and low P level conditions. We detected 12 additive quantitative trait loci (QTL) on nine linkage groups, explaining 8.11%–17.21% of the total phenotype variations. Two of these identified QTLs, qSW2‐3 and qSW17‐2, were identified in multi‐environments both under regular and low P level conditions, and explained 10.10%–14.11% and 10.12%–12.06% of the observed variations, respectively. One QTL, qSW17‐2, was novel which has been reported for the first time. Additionally, three QTLs (qSW10‐1, qSW13‐1 and qSW17‐1) were detected under low P conditions and the other QTLs were detected specifically under regular P levels. These particular QTLs improve our understanding of the genetic basis of P efficiency in soybean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grain legumes being affordable sources of proteins, vitamins and essential micronutrients are key to human nutrition worldwide. However, frequent drought episodes present serious threat to grain legume production worldwide. Advances in legume omics in concert with evolving phenotyping and breeding techniques hold great promise to improve drought response of these crops. These resources could underpin prebreeding efforts to expedite discovery and deployment of novel drought tolerance traits into elite backgrounds. Fast‐track transfer of traits that confer drought tolerance using marker technologies has been demonstrated in grain legumes like chickpea. However, complex genetic architecture of drought tolerance demands embracing more efficient tools like genomic selection (GS) for accelerated trait improvement. Recent studies on GS for addressing complex traits like drought tolerance have yielded encouraging results in these crops. Recently, speed breeding (SB) protocols have also been optimized for the improvement of long‐day/day‐neutral grain legumes. Efficacy of SB protocols with regard to complex traits awaits further evidences though. There remains immense scope for integrating SB with GS and gene editing to deliver drought‐tolerant cultivars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing severity of high temperature worldwide presents an alarming threat to the humankind. As evident by massive yield losses in various food crops, the escalating adverse impacts of heat stress ( HS) are putting the global food as well as nutritional security at great risk. Intrinsically, plants respond to high temperature stress by triggering a cascade of events and adapt by switching on numerous stress-responsive genes. However, the complex and poorly understood mechanism of heat tolerance ( HT), limited access to the precise phenotyping techniques, and above all, the substantial G × E effects offer major bottlenecks to the progress of breeding for improving HT. Therefore, focus should be given to assess the crop diversity, and targeting the adaptive/morpho-physiological traits while making selections. Equally important is the rapid and precise introgression of the HT-related gene(s)/ QTLs to the heat-susceptible cultivars to recover the genotypes with enhanced HT. Therefore, the progressive tailoring of the heat-tolerant genotypes demands a rational integration of molecular breeding, functional genomics and transgenic technologies reinforced with the next-generation phenomics facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]