Food legumes are important constituents of the human diet and animal feed where they are crucial to a balanced diet, supplying high quality proteins. These crops also play an important role in low-input agricultural production systems by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Despite systematic and continuous breeding efforts through conventional methods, substantial genetic gains have not been achieved. With the rise in demand for food legumes/pulses and increased market value of these crops, research has focused on increasing production and improving the quality of pulses for both edible and industria.

Food legumes are important constituents of the human diet and animal feed where they are crucial to a balanced diet, supplying high quality proteins. These crops also play an important role in low-input agricultural production systems by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Despite systematic and continuous breeding efforts through conventional methods, substantial genetic gains have not been achieved. With the rise in demand for food legumes/pulses and increased market value of these crops, research has focused on increasing production and improving the quality of pulses for both edible and industrial purposes. "Biology and Breeding of Food Legumes" covers the history, origin and evolution, botany, breeding objectives and procedures, nutritional improvement, industrial uses and post-harvest technology and also recent developments made through biotechnological intervention.

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.

The protein molecule is the basic building block of every living entity. Its deficiency leads to restricted growth and development of individuals. Globally, such malnutrition is on the rise due to various reasons such as rapid population growth, stagnation of productivity, and ever-rising costs. Millions of people, especially in developing and under-developed countries, suffer from protein malnutrition and the only possible solution is to encourage farmers to grow high-protein food legume crops in their fields for domestic consumption. This, however, could be possible if farmers are provided with new cultivars with high yield, and resistance to major insects, diseases, and key abiotic stresses. The major food legume crops are chickpea, cowpea, common bean, groundnut, lentil, pigeonpea, and soybean. Predominantly, the legume crops are grown under a subsistence level and, therefore, in comparison to cereals and horticultural crops their productivity is low and highly variable. The crop breeders around the globe are engaged in breeding suitable cultivars for harsh and changing environments but success has been limited and not up to needs. With the recent development of new technologies in plant sciences, efforts are being made to help under-privileged farmers through breeding new cultivars which will produce more protein per unit of land area. In this book, the contributors analyze the constraints, review new technologies, and propose a future course of crop breeding programs in seven cold and warm season legume crops.

This edited volume provides state-of–the-art overview of abiotic stress responses and tolerance mechanisms of different legume crops viz., chickpea, mung bean, lentil, black gram, cowpea, cluster bean, soybean and groundnut. Legumes play an important role in human nutrition and soil health through fixation of nitrogen. Legume production and productivity are vulnerable to different abiotic stresses. A proper understanding about the physiological and molecular basis of the legume crops is essential for genetic improvement of abiotic stress tolerance. This book consists of 15 chapters covering physiological and biochemical basis, molecular physiology, molecular breeding, genetics, genomics, transgenics, epigenetics of drought, saline, high temperature and nutrient deficiency stresses, and the role of microRNAs in abiotic stress tolerance. This volume offers new perspectives in legume crop abiotic stress management, and is useful for various stakeholders, including post graduates students, scientists, environmentalists and policymakers.

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

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.