Although chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) has high yield potential, its seed yield is often low and unstable due to the impact of abiotic stresses, such as drought and heat. As a result of global warming, both drought and heat are estimated to be major yield constraints between one-quarter and one-third per annum. In the present review, genomic-mediated breeding strategies to increase resilience against global warming. Exacerbated drought and heat stresses have been examined to understand the latest advancement happening for better management of these challenges. Resistance mechanisms for drought and heat stresses consist of (i) escape via earliness, (ii) avoidance via morphological traits such as better root traits, compound leaves, or multipinnate leaves and double-/multiple-podded traits, and (iii) tolerance via molecular and physiological traits, such as special tissue and cellular abilities. Both stresses in chickpeas are quantitatively governed by minor genes and are profoundly influenced by edaphic and other environmental conditions. High-yield genotypes have traditionally been screened for resistance to drought and heat stresses in the target selection environment under stress conditions or in the simulacrum mediums under controlled conditions. There are many drought- and heat-tolerant genotypes among domestic and wild Cicer chickpeas, especially in accessions of C. reticulatum Ladiz., C. echinospermum P.H. Davis, and C. turcicum Toker, J. Berger, and Gokturk. The delineation of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and genes allied to drought- and heat-related attributes have paved the way for designing stress-tolerant cultivars in chickpeas. Transgenic and “omics” technologies hold newer avenues for the basic understanding of background metabolic exchanges of QTLs/candidate genes for their further utilization. The overview of the effect of drought and heat stresses, its mechanisms/adaptive strategies, and markers linked to stress-related traits with their genetics and sources are pre-requisites for framing breeding programs of chickpeas with the intent of imparting drought tolerance. Ideotype chickpeas for resistance to drought and heat stresses were, therefore, developed directly using marker-aided selection over multiple locations. The current understanding of molecular breeding supported by functional genomics and omics technologies in developing drought- and heat-tolerant chickpea is discussed in this review.

In an investigation carried out during Kharif 2010, 112 diverse genotypes of mungbean were evaluated for their pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) tolerance and other important agronomic traits. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for all the characters studied. Seed germination % in pods (SGP), which was used as a measure of PHS tolerance, ranged from 2.09 in Vigna radiata var. sublobata (wild progenitor of mungbean) to 100.0 in the cultivar MH 318. The character associations and direct and indirect effects revealed in the study give a preliminary idea about various plant, pod and seed traits playing role in the governance of pre-harvest sprouting in mungbean. The study also provides information on the performance of some of the popular mungbean cultivars with respect to their PHS tolerance and identifies some mungbean genotypes with relatively low PHS. However, comprehensive field evaluation is required before these genotypes can be used in breeding programmes.

The present study on association of various plant, pod and seed characters with seed yield was carried out using 112 diverse genotypes of mungbean, along with five high yielding checks.

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