Increasing the amount of micronutrients in diets across the world is crucial to improving world health. Numerous methods can accomplish this such as the biofortification of food through biotechnology, conventional breeding, and agronomic approaches. Of these, biofortification methods, conventional breeding, and agronomic approaches are currently globally accepted and, therefore, should be the primary focus of research efforts. This review synthesizes the current literature regarding the state of biofortified foods through conventional breeding and agronomic approaches for crops. Additionally, the benefits and limitations for all described approaches are discussed, allowing us to identify key areas of research that are still required to increase the efficacy of these methods. The information provided here should provide a basal knowledge for global efforts that are combating micronutrient deficiencies.

In wild habitats, fruit dehiscence is a critical strategy for seed dispersal; however, in cultivated crops it is one of the major sources of yield loss. Therefore, indehiscence of fruits, pods, etc., was likely to be one of the first traits strongly selected in crop domestication. Even with the historical selection against dehiscence in early domesticates, it is a trait still targeted in many breeding programs, particularly in minor or underutilized crops. Here, we review dehiscence in pulse (grain legume) crops, which are of growing importance as a source of protein in human and livestock diets, and which have received less attention than cereal crops and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We specifically focus on the (i) history of indehiscence in domestication across legumes, (ii) structures and the mechanisms involved in shattering, (iii) the molecular pathways underlying this important trait, (iv) an overview of the extent of crop losses due to shattering, and the effects of environmental factors on shattering, and, (v) efforts to reduce shattering in crops. While our focus is mainly pulse crops, we also included comparisons to crucifers and cereals because there is extensive research on shattering in these taxa.

“Stay-green” crop phenotypes have been shown to impact drought tolerance and nutritional content of several crops. We aimed to genetically describe and functionally dissect the particular stay-green phenomenon found in chickpeas with a green cotyledon color of mature dry seed and investigate its potential use for improvement of chickpea environmental adaptations and nutritional value. We examined 40 stay-green accessions and a set of 29 BC2F4-5 stay-green introgression lines using a stay-green donor parent ICC 16340 and two Indian elite cultivars (KAK2, JGK1) as recurrent parents. Genetic studies of segregating populations indicated that the green cotyledon trait is controlled by a single recessive gene that is invariantly associated with the delayed degreening (extended chlorophyll retention). We found that the chickpea ortholog of Mendel’s I locus of garden pea, encoding a SGR protein as very likely to underlie the persistently green cotyledon color phenotype of chickpea. Further sequence characterization of this chickpea ortholog CaStGR1 (CaStGR1, for carietinum stay-green gene 1) revealed the presence of five different molecular variants (alleles), each of which is likely a loss-of-function of the chickpea protein (CaStGR1) involved in chlorophyll catabolism. We tested the wild type and green cotyledon lines for components of adaptations to dry environments and traits linked to agronomic performance in different experimental systems and different levels of water availability. We found that the plant processes linked to disrupted CaStGR1 gene did not functionality affect transpiration efficiency or water usage. Photosynthetic pigments in grains, including provitaminogenic carotenoids important for human nutrition, were 2–3-fold higher in the stay-green type. Agronomic performance did not appear to be correlated with the presence/absence of the stay-green allele. We conclude that allelic variation in chickpea CaStGR1 does not compromise traits linked to environmental adaptation and agronomic performance, and is a promising genetic technology for biofortification of provitaminogenic carotenoids in chickpea.