Search

Grain legume crops are an important component of global food and nutritional security and help in maintaining agro-ecological systems. They fix atmospheric nitrogen via the root-inhabiting rhizobacteria, thereby minimising the harmful effects caused by the excessive application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers in the soil environment. There has been less focus on legume crop wild relatives for harnessing their potential traits and novel gene(s) to incorporate them into the cultivated legumes for developing climate-resilient grain legumes. In this edited book, we will highlight the importance of various potential traits of crop wild relatives, which are yet to be properly harnessed for designing future climate-resilient grain legumes. We also update how advances in molecular genetics and genomics have enabled the underpinning of several candidate genes/genomic regions in various crop wild relatives harbouring adaptive traits that confer climate resilience in grain legumes.Readers will benefit from new information on various crop wild relatives in grain legumes and how these wild relatives could be explored for novel climate resilience genes for developing future climate-resilient legume crops. They will gain an understanding of how genomic advances (genome sequence, pan genomes) have uncovered the novel genomic regions attributed to climate resilience in various grain legumes. Finally, the critical role of these wild relatives in maintaining the lost gene(s) due to the domestication process will be discussed.Comprehensive information on conventional breeding, advanced breeding, and recent advances in genomics covering all the major crop wild relatives of legumes is not available in a single book. Thus, this book will provide readers with the latest updates on various information covering all aspects of wild species of legumes.

More than 20 million childhood deaths occur every year due to the micronutrient deficiency and diet-related non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes). The United Nations (UN) recently announced that the increase in chronic, non-communicable diseases has resulted in 36 million deaths around the world annually, claiming more lives than all other causes combined. These chronic diseases are not isolated to developed countries and are even more pronounced in the developing world. Such chronic illnesses have caused far more deaths than infectious diseases throughout the world (except Africa) in recent years. Therefore, enrichment of micronutrients in staple food crops is of paramount importance for the nutritional security in our world. Biofortification is the development of micronutrient- and/or vitamin-rich crops using traditional crop improvement practices as well as modern biotechnology tools. It is a more sustainable and cost effective method than food supplementation, fortification and diet diversification. This work consolidates available information on the different aspects of breeding for improved nutrition of pulses. An overview of entire pulses based on their nutritional profile is given so that audience can find the desired information easily. Food legumes are the active ingredients in many gluten-free food products and there is a continuous rise of the use of pulses flour in milling and baking processes. Our book sheds light on recent efforts and the underlying constraints of meeting the public demand. We believe this work provides the basic information for anyone interested in biofortification and stimulate further research to meet this unique challenge.

Plant improvement has shifted its focus from yield, quality and disease resistance to factors that will enhance commercial export, such as early maturity, shelf life and better processing quality. Conventional plant breeding methods aiming at the improvement of a self-pollinating crop, such as wheat, usually take 10-12 years to develop and release of the new variety. During the past 10 years, significant advances have been made and accelerated methods have been developed for precision breeding and early release of crop varieties. This work summarizes concepts dealing with germplasm enhancement and development of improved varieties based on innovative methodologies that include doubled haploidy, marker assisted selection, marker assisted background selection, genetic mapping, genomic selection, high-throughput genotyping, high-throughput phenotyping, mutation breeding, reverse breeding, transgenic breeding, shuttle breeding, speed breeding, low cost high-throughput field phenotyping, etc. It is an important reference with special focus on accelerated development of improved crop varieties.

This book examines the development of innovative modern methodologies towards augmenting conventional plant breeding, in individual crops, for the production of new crop varieties under the increasingly limiting environmental and cultivation factors to achieve sustainable agricultural production, enhanced food security, in addition to providing raw materials for innovative industrial products and pharmaceuticals. This is Vol 7, subtitled Legumes, focuses on advances in breeding strategies using both traditional and modern approaches for the improvement of individual legume crops. Included in this volume are Adzuki bean, Black gram, Chickpea Cluster bean, Common bean, Cowpea, Faba bean, Hyacinth bean, Lentil, Mung bean, Pigeonpea and Soybean. This volume is contributed by 57 internationally reputable scientists from 9 countries. Each chapter comprehensively reviews the modern literature on the subject and reflects the authors own experience.

This book describes the concepts, strategies and techniques for pulse-crop improvement in the era of climate change, highlighting the latest advances in plant molecular mapping and genome sequencing. Genetic mapping of genes and QTLs has broadened the scope of marker-assisted breeding and map-based cloning in almost all major pulse crops. Genetic transformation, particularly using alien genes conferring resistance to herbicide, insects and diseases has facilitated the development of a huge number of genetically modified varieties of the major pulse crops. Since the genome sequencing of rice in 2002, genomes of over 7 pulse crops have been sequenced. This has resulted in the possibility of deciphering the exact nucleotide sequence and chromosomal positions of agroeconomic genes. Most importantly, comparative genomics and genotyping-by-sequencing has opened up a new vista for exploring wild crop relatives for identification of useful donor genes.

This book presents in-depth insights into strategies involving plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), including symbiotic/asymbiotic nitrogen fixers and associative/endophyte bacteria, phosphate-solubilizing microbes, as well as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and their active biomolecules in legume production. It also examines the latest research findings on the taxonomic status of rhizobia and signal molecules affecting rhizobia-legume symbiosis to improve readers'understanding of the cultivation of legumes in conventional and derelict soil. The agronomically important microflora broadly discussed have offered solutions to some of the problems associated with expensive fertilizers used in many production systems. This second edition provides an overview of metal toxicity to legumes and presents strategies for the abatement of metal toxicity to legumes. Aimed at professionals, practitioners, researchers and graduate students in microbiology, crop sciences, soil microbiology, biotechnology and environmental microbiology, the book focuses on the basic concepts and practical aspects of useful soil microbiota in legume production.

​​​This book is devoted to grain legumes and include eight chapters devoted to the breeding of specific grain legume crops and five general chapters dealing with important topics which are common to most of the species in focus. Soybean is not included in the book as it is commonly considered an oil crop more than a grain legume and is included in the Oil Crops Volume of the Handbook of Plant Breeding.​Legume species belong to the Fabaceae family and are characterized by their fruit, usually called pod. Several species of this family were domesticated by humans, such as soybean, common bean, faba bean, pea, chickpea, lentil, peanut, or cowpea. Some of these species are of great relevance as human and animal food. Food legumes are consumed either by their immature pod or their dry seeds, which have a high protein content. Globally, grain legumes are the most relevant source of plant protein, especially in many countries of Africa and Latin America, but there are some constraints in their production, such as a poor adaptation, pest and diseases and unstable yield. Current research trends in Legumes are focused on new methodologies involving genetic and omic studies, as well as new approaches to the genetic improvement of these species, including the relationships with their symbiotic rhizobia.

Legumes in the Omic Era provides a timely review of recent advances in legume genomics research and application. In this post-genomic era enormous amount of biological information is available which could be of huge potential use for crop improvement applications. This aspect of genomics assisted plant breeding is focused throughout the book for all the important grain legume crops. Role of functional genomics and importance of bioinformatics tools in present day genomics and molecular breeding research is also discussed in detail. Use of molecular tools for nutritional fortification of grain legume is briefly presented. A chapter also been contributed on fungal disease resistance to elucidate potential application of genomic tools in molecular breeding of grain legume species. The book contains fifteen chapters contributed by 50 scientists from different countries who are actively involved in analyzing and improving particular legume genome. This book will serve as referenceresource to legumes researchers for use of genome information in improvement of major legume crops. Dr Sanjeev Gupta is Principal Scientist/Project Coordinator-All India Coordinated Research Project on Vigna Crops at Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur. He has more than two decades of research experience in grain legume breeding and developed a number of high yielding cultivars in grain legumes. He is authored numerous research papers published in peer-reviewed journals and edited several books in plant breeding aspects. He was the Organizing Secretary of the International Grain Legume Conference, 2009 held in the Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, India. He has travelled across the continents to present his research several times. He is recipient of several awards for his research and literary contributions Dr. Nagasamy Nadarajan is the Director of the Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), Kanpur. He has more than three decades of teaching and research experience and developed more than fifteen legume and cereal cultivars. He has to his credits more than 200 peer-reviewed research publications. He has guided several graduate students for Masters and Doctoral degrees in food legume breeding and genetics research. He has authored a book in biometrics which is one of the most popular books among the agriculture graduate students in India. He is the recipient of three international and six national awards and honours for his outstanding contributions Mr. Debjyoti Sen Gupta is the ICAR International Fellow and Ph.D. candidate at North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, USA. Recently, he visited Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, USA for high throughput genotyping work. Before joining at NDSU he was serving as the Scientist in the Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR). He has authored several research articles, review articles and book chapters in the peer-reviewed journals and books from reputed publishers like Springer, CABI etc. He is recipient of several fellowships like CSIR-JRF, New Delhi; ICAR-JRF, New Delhi throughout his graduate study programs.

Grain legumes, including common-bean, chickpea, pigeonpea, pea, cowpea, lentil and others, form important constituents of global diets, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Despite this significant role, global production has increased only marginally in the past 50 years. The slow production growth, along with a rising human population and improved buying capacity has substantially reduced the per capita availability of food legumes. Changes in environmental climate have also had significant impact on production, creating a need to identify stable donors among genetic resources for environmentally robust genes and designing crops resilient to climate change. Genetic and Genomic Resources of Grain Legume Improvement is the first book to bring together the latest resources in plant genetics and genomics to facilitate the identification of specific germplasm, trait mapping and allele mining to more effectively develop biotic and abiotic-stress-resistant grains. This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, crop biologists and students working with crop development. - Explores origin, distribution and diversity of grain legumes - Presents information on germplasm collection, evaluation and maintenance - Offers insight into pre-breeding/germplasm enhancement efforts - Integrates genomic and genetic resources in crop improvement - Internationally contributed work

Investigations on seed proteins have been intensively carried out during the past two decades. This is valid with regard to both their chemical composition as well as their nutritive value. The development of new biochemical and physical methods has resulted in obtaining deep insights into the structures of seed proteins and their mutual interactions. Intensive exchange of information between the scientists participating in national and international research programmes has given strong impulses for intensifying the research in this field. For the quantitative and quali­ tative investigations of seed proteins, not only some model plants were used; on the contrary, they were carried out on a large number of different crops important for different regions of the earth. In this way, a level of knowledge has been reached which could not be expected in this diversity within such a short period. This holds not only true for biochemical but also for physiological characters of the species of the limiting amino acids studied. With regard to nutritional aspects, the problem was of special interest, but also seed proteins acting as antinutritional factors were analysed in detail. Based on the knowledge of seed protein structures, it was possible to perform investigations on the genetic basis of their synthesis. This was done under two different aspects: The basic knowledge on the genes involved should be widened; moreover, it should be tried to improve the seed proteins quantitatively and qualitatively under the influence of mutant genes.

Cool season grain legumes including pea, faba bean, lentil, chickpea, and grass pea are extensively grown in many parts of the world. They are a primary source of proteins in human diet. This volume deals with the most recent advances in genetics, genomics, and breeding of these crops. The'state of the art'for the individual crops differs; howeve

Wild crop relatives are now playing a significant part in the elucidation and improvement of the genomes of their cultivated counterparts. This work includes comprehensive examinations of the status, origin, distribution, morphology, cytology, genetic diversity and available genetic and genomic resources of numerous wild crop relatives, as well as of their evolution and phylogenetic relationship. Further topics include their role as model plants, genetic erosion and conservation efforts, and their domestication for the purposes of bioenergy, phytomedicines, nutraceuticals and phytoremediation. Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources comprises 10 volumes on Cereals, Millets and Grasses, Oilseeds, Legume Crops and Forages, Vegetables, Temperate Fruits, Tropical and Subtropical Fruits, Industrial Crops, Plantation and Ornamental Crops, and Forest Trees. It contains 125 chapters written by nearly 400 well-known authors from about 40 countries.

Microbes for Legume Improvement comprises 21 chapters and provides comprehensive information on concepts of microbial technology for the improvement of legumes grown in different agro-ecosystems. The role of microbes including symbiotic nitrogen fixers, asymbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria (like Azospirillum), plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), phosphate-solubilizing microbes, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and biocontrol agents in the improvement of both conventional and forage legumes growth is discussed. The role of bacterial biofilms in legume-Rhizobium interactions and metal tolerant microbes in the improvement of legumes is dealt separately. Furthermore, recent findings on the taxonomic status of rhizobia, various signal molecules affecting symbiosis, legume-pathogen and legume-rhizobial interactions and proteomic analysis of legume–microbe interactions are addressed. This volume gives a broad view of legume disease management using microbes and presents strategies for the management of cultivated legumes. It is therefore of special interest to both academics and professionals working in the field of microbiology, soil microbiology, environment microbiology, biotechnology and agronomy as well as plant protection sciences.

Genome Mapping and Molecular Breeding in Plants presents the current status of the elucidation and improvement of plant genomes of economic interest. The focus is on genetic and physical mapping, positioning, cloning, monitoring of desirable genes by molecular breeding and the most recent advances in genomics. The series comprises seven volumes: Cereals and Millets; Oilseeds; Pulses, Sugar and Tuber Crops; Fruits and Nuts; Vegetables; Technical Crops; and Forest Trees. Pulses, Sugar and Tuber Crops includes reviews in 15 chapters contributed by 47 eminent scientists from 10 countries. The chapters on common bean, pea, cowpea, sugarcane and potato include comprehensive reviews of voluminous research findings. Fundamental aspects and molecular results are presented for eight ‘orphan crops'of high agroeconomic importance, including mungbean, lentil, chickpea, lathyrus, pigeonpea, sweet potato, cassava and yam. Additionally, works on quinoa and Bambara groundnut are reviewed for the first time.

The first book in this new series discusses grain legumes, which rank only second to cereals in supplying calories and protein to the world's population. With each chapter written by an internationally renowned scientist, the book reviews the role of alien germplasm for the domestication of each major legume crop. Discussion for each crop covers or