Legumes are a multipurpose crop species, with a great economic value, which, worldwide, are commonly cultivated for human food, livestock fodder, industrial raw materials, and soil health enhancement. Over the last few decades, numerous research projects have been conducted for the genetic improvements of legumes, in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015–2030. Remarkable progress has been made in legume genetics, genomics, and breeding. The first references to the genome of legume plants were published in 2010, and these were the complete draft genome sequences of Glycine max. The chromosome scale high-quality genome assembly and annotations are available for many legume species today, including Glycine max; Lotus japonicus; Medicago ruthenica (L.); Medicago truncatula; Phaseolus lunatus; Mucuna pruriens; Vicia sativa; Trifolium pratense; Lupinus angustifolius; Cajanus cajan; Vigna radiata ssp.; and Cicer arietinum. Large-scale transcriptomic, genotyping, and phenotyping data have been generated from this diverse panel of legume cultivars for their varietal improvements. This Special Issue presents a collection of a variety of articles that cover the recent progress that has been made in legume genetics, genomics, and breeding. The authors have addressed the applications of phenotypic and genotypic diversity for the selection of the best cultivars; of morphological traits for the selection of the best local variety, the estimation of the agronomic performances of resistant and susceptible cultivars; the nutritional characteristics of the seed protein; genome-wide association studies on agronomic traits and isolation; and the characterization and function studies of many agronomically important genes.

Sterility mosaic disease (SMD) is a serious biotic restraint in pigeonpea-growing regions of the Indian subcontinent. Disease control using chemicals like acaricides is not economical or sustainable, pointing towards host plant resistance as the ideal strategy for its management. In this study, from preliminary screening of 75 pigeonpea germplasm accessions and breeding lines, 21 pigeonpea genotypes showing moderate resistance to SMD were selected and again assessed at two multi-environment locations during Kharif 2021/2022 and 2022/2023. Analysis of variance partitioned the variation between the main effects of genotype and genotype × environment (GGE). The results revealed a significant variation (p ˂ 0.05) in the SMD incidence between the tested genotypes, environment, and their interactions. Genotype variance contributed the greatest effect (63.56%) to the total variation and it represents the maximum disease variation. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was found for the levels of SMD incidence between the test environments. We observed that SMD incidence had a high negative correlation with the maximum temperature (r = −0.933), and positively correlated with the rainfall (r = 0.502). Analysis of principal components 1 and 2 of the GGE explained 95.33% of the total variation and identified 10 genotypes (G1, G3, G4, G8, G10, G12, G13, G15, G20, and G21) showing moderate resistance stability across the environments. As new sources of resistance to SMD, these genotypes should be incorporated in pigeonpea breeding trials for further release. This research broadens the area of phenotyping and identifies stable resistance sources that can be used in future SMD resistance breeding projects.

Maize is the second most important staple food crop in the world after wheat. For maize hybrid seed production, a prominent step is detasseling in the female parent, which is laborious, time consuming, and increases the hybrid seed cost by 15 to 20 percent. Hence, to overcome this problem, exploitation of male sterility in maize crops gains special significance. In this direction, the research was conducted to transfer cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS-C) from a CMS donor (VL192114) into the female parents (CAL1514 and ZL153493) of heat- and drought-resilient maize hybrids (RCRMH-2 and RCRMH-3) by a marker-assisted backcross scheme. The present research used Diversity Array Technology (DArTag) and Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP)-based single-nucleotide polymorphic markers for background selection in backcross populations. Genome recovery percentage ranged from 64.25 to 72.70, 78.94 to 87.69 and 82.28 to 90.77 percent in the BC₁F₁, BC₂F₁ and BC₃F₁ population, respectively, in the CAL1514 population, while it was 63.47 to 73.55, 78.16 to 88.76 and 83.96 to 91.81 percent in the BC₁F₁, BC₂F₁ and BC₃F₁ population, respectively, in the ZL153493 population. When the near-isogenic CMS lines of both populations are compared for agro-morphological traits with their recurrent parents, the agronomic qualities of recurrent parents, as well as the attributes of distinctness, uniformity and stability, are shown. Therefore, male sterility-transferred, female lines of RCRMH-2 and RCRMH-3 maize hybrids can be used directly to produce maize hybrid seed without the need of the detasseling process.