The world’s food and agricultural schemes have gradually fallen into an alarming state due to challenges such as high population birth rates, diverse agro-climatic zones, a lack of measures to counter global warming, severe practices of sole-culture cultivation, and asset reduction. A very high dependency on limited staple food crops is associated with repetitious diets, deprivation of food, and shortages of trace minerals, which often causes dietary sicknesses. To ensure nutritious diets worldwide, a real-world and justifiable scheme is provided to garner extra attention towards variation in both agriculture/farming approaches and food habits. The EAT-Lancet statement emphasized an increase in agri-based diets as a way of attaining global generational health. Enlarging neglected crops with plenty of genomic stocks and potentially profitable attributes is a solution that could address food and nutritional security concerns. Bambara groundnut is one such imperative and neglected legume crop that contributes positively to improving global food and nutrient safety. As a “complete food”, this crop has recently been treated as a new millennium crop, and furthermore, it is more adjusted to poor soil and climatic conditions than other dominant crops. Bambara groundnut is a repository of vital nutrients that provides carbohydrates, crucial amino acids, proteins, and energy as well as minerals and vitamins to developed and low-income countries where animal proteins are not readily available. This review explores the potential of Bambara groundnut in ensuring food and nutrient security; its variables, production, processing, nutrient values, role in reducing the nutritional gap, and diverse uses; and attempts in improving its traits. To strengthen food production, an agricultural revolution is required for underutilized crop species to feed the ever-expanding population in the world. Henceforth, advanced plant-breeding procedures, such as next-generation breeding techniques, various molecular tools, TILLING, Eco-TILLING, proteomics, genomics, and transcriptomics (which has been used for major crops), also need to be practiced to intensify production. To boost productivity and to feed the most starved and malnourished populations of the world, it is assumed that the application of modern techniques will play a vital role in the advancement of the underutilized Bambara groundnut.

Nine morphologically distinct kenaf genotypes were hybridized to produce 36 hybrids following a half diallel mating design. The combining ability and gene action of 15 yield and yield components were assessed in hybrids and their parents across two environments. Except for the mid diameter and plant height traits, there were highly significant differences (p ≤ 0.01) between the environments and the interaction of genotype and environment. Additive gene effects were considerable for the inheritance of these traits, and the expression of these additive genes was heavily influenced by the environment. Significant differences were found for all studied traits for GCA except top diameter and SCA except plant height and top diameter, implying the presence of both additive and non-additive gene action for the inheritance of the concerned characters. For all features except top diameter and number of nodes, the magnitude of GCA variation was significantly higher than that of SCA variance, indicating the additive gene's predominance. The parental lines P₁, P₃ and P₄ were outstanding general combiners for fiber yield and yield-related parameters. Considering combining ability and genetic analysis study, the crosses P₁ × P₄, P₁ × P₉, P₂ × P₃, P₂ × P₅, P₄ × P₆, P₄ × P₇, P₄ × P₉, P₅ × P₈, and P₇ × P₉ were found promising for their heterotic response to higher fiber yield, stick yield, seed yield and could be for future improvement in kenaf breeding programmes.

This experiment was conducted to genotypically and phenotypically select new rice lines pyramided with blast and bacterial leaf blight disease resistance genes after a marker-assisted backcross breeding programme. The inter-relationship among agro-morphological characteristics and their effect on yield was also studied. The polymorphic functional and microsatellite markers Xa21FR and pTA248 (Xa21), Xa13prom (xa13), RM21 (xa5), MP (Xa4), RM6836 (Pi2, Pi9 & Piz) and RM8225 (Piz) were first confirmed for the target genes. The selected markers were used for foreground selection of BC₂F₂ homozygous progenies with the target genes. Plants that had homozygous IRBB60 alleles for these markers were evaluated for their recovery of the recurrent parent genome. IRBB60 was used as the donor parent for bacterial blight resistance genes while Putra-1 served as a recipient/recurrent parent with background blast-resistance genes and high yield. After the foreground selection, 79 polymorphic simple sequence repeat markers identified from the marker polymorphism survey were used for marker-assisted background selection to determine the percentage recovery of the recurrent parent genome. In order to make a selection on a phenotypic basis, 14 agro-morphological traits were measured and recorded. The result obtained from the study showed that 16 lines received the seven resistance genes in sufficiently varied numbers and were selected. The distribution of yield per hectare showed that about 50% of the selected lines had yields as high as 5 t/ha and above. Some of the lines produced as high as 8.4 t/ha. These lines demonstrated the potential of recording uniform 8t/ha upon recombination at BC₂F₂. The study also indicated that the number of panicles per hill correlated strongly, significantly and positively with the number of tillers (r = 0.962 **), total grain weight per hill (r = 0.928 **) and yield per hectare (r = 0.927 **). It was concluded that the newly improved resistant lines which were selected have the capability to compete with Putra-1 in terms of its productivity and yield. The newly developed lines would be useful in future breeding programmes as donors for bacterial leaf blight and blast resistance genes. These lines are recommended for release to farmers in Malaysia and other rice-growing agro-ecologies for commercial cultivation.

Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) is a natural fibre crop that can be used for a variety of purposes and has various applications in industry. Despite this, its potential has not been fully exploited because of low yields and a narrow genetic base, limiting hybrids’ development. Based on this background, eight kenaf mutants and one commercial cultivar were selected and crossed in a half‐diallel for general and specific combining abilities (GCA and SCA) to get the desired results done in this investigation. The 36 hybrid offspring and their parental lines were tested in the field over two environments. Diallel results based on Griffing B method 2 indicated significant differences for all characters studied except for GCA in top diameter and plant height and top diameter SCA, indicating the existence of both additive and nonadditive gene actions for the inheritance of the traits. The amplitude of GCA variation was much higher than that of SCA variation for all parameters except top diameter and node number, showing the additive gene’s prevalence and the likelihood of genetic advancement through selection. In both conditions, Hayman and Jinks graphical studies demonstrated that partial dominance controlled various fibre yield component parameters such as plant height, middle diameter, stick weight, and fibre weight. On the other hand, fibre yield and the majority of physical features indicated either dominance or overdominance gene action. Plant height, base diameter, core diameter, middle diameter, fresh stem weight, and stick weight all strongly positively correlated with fibre yield. These traits also had a higher proportion of additive effects, a moderate narrow‐sense heritability, and a higher baker ratio, indicating successful indirect selection for fibre yield. The parents P₁, P₃, and P₄ had the most dominant alleles for most of the features, while the parents P₂, P₇, and P₉ had the most recessive alleles. The hybrids P₁ × P₄, P₁ × P₉, P₂ × P₃, P₂ × P₅, P₄ × P₆, P₄ × P₇, P₄ × P₉, P₅ × P₈, and P₇ × P₉ outperformed the parents in terms of heterotic responses and showed that they have a lot of genetic potential for kenaf enhancement in tropical climates.

Understanding heterosis and combining ability among distinct kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) genetic resources is crucial for developing hybrid kenaf. An investigation was conducted on 36 F₁ combinations produced from nine parental genotypes of kenaf in a diallelic scheme using Griffing diallel analysis technique 2, model I. Highly significant F-test values revealed the presence of variability for all the 15 quantitative traits for general combining ability (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) except days to 1^st flowering. The magnitude of GCA variance was considerably higher than that of SCA variance for plant height, stem middle diameter, stem top diameter, days to flowering, number of pods, number of seeds and 1000 seeds weight, showing the predominates of additive gene for these traits. Narrow-sense heritability of 50.93% in the combined environments showed that seed number was the most heritable trait, whereas days to 1^st flowering and 1000 seed weight had moderate heritability. Parents P₁, P₃ and P₄ had the most dominant alleles for most traits studied. Considering SCA and heterosis values, the hybrids H3, H4, H9, H11, H23, H29 and H35 had high heterotic for fiber and seed yield.