Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is the second largest pulse crop grown worldwide and ascochyta blight caused by Ascochyta rabiei (Pass.) Labr. is the most devastating disease of the crop in all chickpea growing areas across the continents. The pathogen A. rabiei is highly variable. The resistant sources available are not sufficient and new sources needs to be identified from time to time as resistance breakdown in existing chickpea varieties is very frequent due to fast evolution of new pathotypes of the pathogen. Therefore, this work was undertaken to evaluate the existing chickpea germplasm diversity conserved in Indian National Genebank against the disease under artificial epiphytotic conditions. An artificial standard inoculation procedure was followed for uniform spread of the pathogen. During the last five winter seasons from 2014–15 to 2018–19, a total of 1,970 accessions have been screened against the disease and promising accessions were identified and validated. Screening has resulted in identification of some promising chickpea accessions such as IC275447, IC117744, EC267301, IC248147 and EC220109 which have shown the disease resistance (disease severity score ≤3) in multiple seasons and locations. Promising accessions can serve as the potential donors in chickpea improvement programs. The frequency of resistant and moderately resistant type accessions was comparatively higher in accessions originated from Southwest Asian countries particularly Iran and Syria than the accessions originated from Indian sub-continent. Further large scale screening of chickpea germplasm originated from Southwest Asia may result in identifying new resistant sources for the disease.

Mungbean (Vigna radiata L. Wilczek) is an important food legume crop which contributes significantly to nutritional and food security of South and Southeast Asia. The crop thrives in hot and humid weather conditions, with an optimal temperature range of 28°–35°C, and is mainly cultivated under rainfed environments. However, the rising global temperature has posed a serious threat to mungbean cultivation. Optimal temperature is a vital factor in cellular processes, and every crop species has evolved with its specific temperature tolerance ability. Moreover, variation within a crop species is inevitable, given the diverse environmental conditions under which it has evolved. For instance, various mungbean germplasm can grow and produce seeds in extreme ambient temperatures as low as 20°C or as high as 45°C. This range of variation in mungbean germplasm for heat tolerance plays a crucial role in developing heat tolerant and high yielding mungbean cultivars. However, heat tolerance is a complex mechanism which is extensively discussed in this manuscript; and at the same time individual genotypes have evolved with various ways of heat stress tolerance. Therefore, to enhance understanding towards such variability in mungbean germplasm, we studied morphological, anatomical, physiological, and biochemical traits which are responsive to heat stress in plants with more relevance to mungbean. Understanding heat stress tolerance attributing traits will help in identification of corresponding regulatory networks and associated genes, which will further help in devising suitable strategies to enhance heat tolerance in mungbean. The major pathways responsible for heat stress tolerance in plants are also discussed.

Domestication is a dynamic and ongoing process of transforming wild species into cultivated species by selecting desirable agricultural plant features to meet human needs such as taste, yield, storage, and cultivation practices. Human plant domestication began in the Fertile Crescent around 12,000 years ago and spread throughout the world, including China, Mesoamerica, the Andes and Near Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa, and eastern North America. Indus valley civilizations have played a great role in the domestication of grain legumes. Crops, such as pigeon pea, black gram, green gram, lablab bean, moth bean, and horse gram, originated in the Indian subcontinent, and Neolithic archaeological records indicate that these crops were first domesticated by early civilizations in the region. The domestication and evolution of wild ancestors into today’s elite cultivars are important contributors to global food supply and agricultural crop improvement. In addition, food legumes contribute to food security by protecting human health and minimize climate change impacts. During the domestication process, legume crop species have undergone a severe genetic diversity loss, and only a very narrow range of variability is retained in the cultivars. Further reduction in genetic diversity occurred during seed dispersal and movement across the continents. In general, only a few traits, such as shattering resistance, seed dormancy loss, stem growth behavior, flowering–maturity period, and yield traits, have prominence in the domestication process across the species. Thus, identification and knowledge of domestication responsive loci were often useful in accelerating new species’ domestication. The genes and metabolic pathways responsible for the significant alterations that occurred as an outcome of domestication might aid in the quick domestication of novel crops. Further, recent advances in “omics” sciences, gene-editing technologies, and functional analysis will accelerate the domestication and crop improvement of new crop species without losing much genetic diversity. In this review, we have discussed about the origin, center of diversity, and seed movement of major food legumes, which will be useful in the exploration and utilization of genetic diversity in crop improvement. Further, we have discussed about the major genes/QTLs associated with the domestication syndrome in pulse crops and the future strategies to improve the food legume crops.

The development of phosphorus-efficient crop cultivars boosts productivity while lowering eutrophication in the environment. It is feasible to improve the efficiency of phosphorus (P) absorption in lentils by enhancing phosphorus absorption through root architectural traits. The root architectural traits of 110 diverse lentil genotypes of Indian and Mediterranean origin were assessed, and the relationships between traits were investigated. In a hydroponics experiment, the lentil lines were examined at the seedling stage under two conditions: adequate P supply and deficient P supply. The Pearson correlation coefficients between root architectural traits and genetic diversity among lentil lines were assessed. To estimate variance components, a model (fixed factor) was used. In this experiment, both phosphorus (P) and genotype were fixed variables. Our lentil lines showed significant genetic variability and considerable genetic diversity for all traits under both treatments. The TRL (total root length) and PRL (primary root length) showed strong positive associations with all other characteristics excluding root average diameter (RAD) in both P treatments. In both P treatments, the RAD revealed a negative significant association with Total Root Tips (TRT), as well as total root volume (TRV) and total root forks (TRF) in the deficit conditions of P. Total root volume (TRV), total surface area (TSA), and total root tips had higher coefficient variance values. The first two principal components represented 67.88% and 66.19% of the overall variance in the adequate and deficit P treatments respectively. The Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H′) revealed that RAD, PRL, and TSA had more variability than TRT and TRF under both treatments. According to the Comprehensive Phosphorus Efficiency Measure (CPEM), the best five highly efficient genotypes are PLL 18-09, PLS 18-01, PLL 18-25, PLS 18-23, and PLL 18-07, while IG112131, P560206, IG334, L11-231, and PLS18-67 are highly inefficient genotypes. The above contrasting diverse lentil genotypes can be utilized to produce P-efficient lentil cultivars. The lentil germplasm with potentially favorable root traits can be suggested to evaluated for other abiotic stress to use them in crop improvement programme. The scientific breakthroughs in root trait phenotyping have improved the chances of establishing trait–allele relationships. As a result, genotype-to-phenotype connections can be predicted and verified with exceptional accuracy, making it easier to find and incorporate favourable nutrition-related genes/QTLs in to breeding programme.