Livestock production in the European Union EU is highly dependent on imported soybean, exposing the livestock farming system to risks related to the global trade of soybean. Lupin species could be a realistic sustainable alternative source of protein for animal feeding. Lupinus is a very diverse genus with many species. However, only four of them—namely, L. albus, L. angustifolius, L. luteus and L. mutabilis—are cultivated. Their use in livestock farming systems has many advantages in relation to economic and environmental impact. Generally, lupin grains are characterized by high protein content, while their oil content is relatively low but of high quality. On the other hand, the presence of quinolizidine alkaloids and their specific carbohydrate composition are the main antinutritional factors that prevent their use in animal feeding. This research is mainly related to L. albus and to L. angustifolius, and to a lesser extent, to L. lauteus and L. mutabilis. The breeding efforts are mostly focused on yield stabilization, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, biochemical structure associated with seed quality and late maturing. Progress is made in improving lupin with respect to the seed quality, as well as the tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress. It has to be noted that modern cultivars, mostly of L. albus and L. angustifolius, contain low levels of alkaloids. However, for future breeding efforts, the implementation of marker-assisted selection and the available genomic tools is of great importance.

In order to tackle the cumulative adverse effects of global climate change, reduced farmland, and heightened needs of an ever-increasing world population, modern agriculture is in urgent search of solutions that can ensure world food security and sustainable development. Classical crop breeding is still a powerful method to obtain crops with valued agronomical traits, but its potential is gradually being compromised by the menacing decline of genetic variation. Resorting to the epigenome as a source of variation could serve as a promising alternative. Here, we discuss current status of epigenetics-mediated crop breeding (epibreeding), highlight its advances and limitations, outline currently available methodologies, and propose novel RNA-based strategies to modify the epigenome in a gene-specific and transgene-free manner.

Development of high yielding and stable cultivars of various legume crops across different environments is very important for their adoption by farmers. In addition, climate change sets new challenges to major crop species and especially to grain legumes such as faba bean (Vicia faba L.) for adaptation to stressful environments. The present study focused on evaluating faba bean genotypes developed for yield and stability across different environments. The study was conducted in three areas of Greece (South, Central, and North) for two consecutive growing seasons (2018–2019 and 2019–2020). Biomass yield, seed yield, and yield components were studied together with plant height, earliness, and water use efficiency. Genotype, environment, and their interaction affected most of the studied characteristics. The environment was the major source of variation for most of the characteristics, as it explained 81–93% of total variation, and only in the thousand seed weight the variation was 49% for the environment and 40% for the genotype. Genotype had a much smaller effect on the remaining characteristics (1.2–3.9%), and the interaction between environment x genotype accounted for up to 0.5–17% of the variation. GGE-biplot analysis for high yield and stability across different environments revealed three genotypic types: genotypes well adapted either for biomass or seed yield and genotypes with high adaptation capacity for both traits under typical Mediterranean conditions. These results indicated that screening faba bean genotypes under different environmental field conditions is essential to identify adaptable cultivars to be cultivated for biomass and/or seed yield or to be used in breeding programs.

Pea (Pisum arvense L.) is an important legume in many areas of the world, which is used for forage and grain production and could be used in intercropping systems. Intercropping of pea with oat (Avena sativa L.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), in two seeding ratios 60 : 40 and 80 : 20, was compared with pea and two cereal monocrops for two growing seasons (2008–10), at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. The effect of the intercropping systems was determined on growth rate, plant height, chlorophyll content, DM, and N yield. Also, several competition and economic indices were used to evaluate the intercropping systems, such as land equivalent ratio (LER), relative crowding coefficient (K), aggressivity (A), competitive ratio (CR), actual yield loss (AYL), system productivity index (SPI), monetary advantage index (MAI), and intercropping advantage (IA). Growth rate of pea and cereals was lower by an average of 39 and 64%, respectively, in the intercrops than in the monocrops. DM yield was the highest in barley monocrop (13.00 Mg ha–1) followed by P80O20 intercrop (11.73 Mg ha–1). Pea monocrop, and P80O20 and P80B20 intercrops showed the highest crude protein (CP) concentration (137, 132 and 130 g kg–1 DM, respectively), whereas P80O20 intercrop also produced the highest CP yield (1552 kg ha–1). The LER, K, and AYL values (average 1.09, 1.75 and 0.29, respectively), were greater for both pea-oat intercrops compared with the pea-barley intercrops (average 0.98, 0.92 and 0.06, respectively), indicating that in these systems there was an advantage of intercropping for exploiting the resources of the environment. The A, CR, and partial AYL values in all intercrops were greater for oat and barley than pea, which indicated that cereals were more competitive partners than pea. The highest MAI, IA, and SPI values were recorded for P80O20 followed by P60O40 intercrops indicating that these intercropping systems were the most profitable. The results from this study showed that both pea-oat intercrops were more productive with high CP yield, and also they showed the best land-use efficiency.