Marker-Assisted Breeding in Legumes for Drought Tolerance

This contributed volume highlights cutting-edge breeding techniques in legumes, specifically targeting drought tolerance. It examines the challenges faced and explores future perspectives for achieving sustainable legume production.

The dual challenges of a rapidly growing global population and climate change impose immense pressure on agricultural systems to meet current and future food demands. Climate change significantly threatens agriculture, causing substantial yield losses due to biotic and abiotic stresses, with drought being one of the most severe environmental factors impacting plant productivity. Water, which constitutes approximately 80-95% of the fresh biomass of plants, is vital for various physiological processes, including plant growth, development, and metabolism.

Legumes, second only to cereals in global food production, account for 27% of world primary crop production and fulfill 33% of protein requirements. Cultivated across diverse climates and soil types, legumes contribute to over 35% of global vegetable oil production. However, drought remains a major yield-limiting factor in grain legumes, a challenge expected to intensify in the future. Drought adversely affects legumes at all growth stages, disrupting germination (through malfunctioning enzymes like proteases and amylases), nutrient uptake (due to reduced water use efficiency), growth (by inhibiting cell division and leaf expansion), and yield formation (by restricting photosynthesis).

Given these challenges, the scientific community is focusing on developing drought-resistant legume cultivars to ensure future food security. This volume consolidates research efforts on advancing drought-tolerant legumes using marker-assisted breeding techniques.

This book will serve as a valuable resource for students, researchers, and breeding professionals engaged in legume breeding for drought tolerance. By fostering advancements in sustainable agriculture, this volume aims to contribute to global food security and empower stakeholders in addressing climate change-induced agricultural challenges.

Covers the latest evidence regarding drought tolerance in legumes Compares classical breeding approaches with Marker-Assisted Breeding for legumes Provides insights about the contribution of Marker-Assisted Breeding in legumes for drought

Autorentext

Muhammad Azhar Nadeem is working as an Associate Professor of plant breeding and genetics at Mersin University Mersin, Turkiye. He is currently engaged in research activities involving genetic diversity assessment and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify genomic regions and validate them for marker-assisted breeding. Dr. Nadeem is focusing on performing GWAS in legumes, especially in common bean, lentil, and other legumes to identify genomic regions associated with agronomic, mineral elements, cooking, and quality traits. He has more than 75 SCI/SCIE publications in world-renowned and prestigious journals and also published more than 10 book chapters on important aspects of molecular genetics about plant species. He serves as an editorial board member of several international journals. Dr. Nadeem is an active member of various COST actions as well. Dr. Nadeem served as editor and co-editor of four other books. He has a good number of citations (over 3000) as per Google Scholar with an h-Index of 25.

Faheem Shehzad Baloch is working as a professor of plant genetics and breeding at Mersin University, Turkey. He has more than 11 years of teaching and research experience in plant phenomics, genetics and genomics, and biotechnology. He led and participated in many projects funded by national and international organizations. He supervised and co-supervised MSC, PhD, and postdoc candidates from various countries. He is serving as a Management Committee and active member of various COST actions and played important roles in different work packages of various COST actions. He has more than 120 SCI publications in WOS and edited 9 books and written over 19 book chapters on important aspects of molecular genetics in relation to plant species. He has an extensive array of citations with over 4300 times as per Google Scholar with an h-Index of 35. He serves as an Editorial board member of several impacted journals.

Filippos Bantis is an Assistant Professor at the Vegetable and Greenhouse Crops, School of Agriculture, University of Western Macedonia, Florina, 53100, Greece. Dr. Bantis has undertaken as Principal Investigator 2 research projects funded by individual companies and has also participated or is participating in 12 European and national research projects as well as in 4 joint action projects (COST Actions). He is involved in a patent entitled "Method for the production of improved grafted watermelon seedlings using artificial lighting". He has 33 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and there are 547 citations in his published work. He has also 19 presentations at international and 11 presentations at national conferences, is a member of the editorial board of two international journals, and is a guest editor for 2 special issues in an international journal.

Sajid Fiaz is an Assistant Professor working at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, The University of Lahore, Pakistan. Dr. Fiaz is also serving as adjunct scholar at Henan Institute of Science and Technology, China. Dr. Fiaz s research interests include marker-assisted selection for agronomic traits, mutation breeding for biotic and abiotic stress resistance, Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and genome editing for yield and quality traits in cereals. Dr. Fiaz is actively supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has published more than 162 research, 10 review articles, and 12 book chapters with various prestigious international scientific journals. He is working as academic editor with several high-notch scientific magazines.

Muhammad Aasim is a Professor at the Department of Plant Protec

Inhalt

1. Abiotic stresses and legumes production.- 2. Drought Stress and Sustainable Legume Production.- 3. Legume Production and Problems in the Mediterranean Region.- 4. Drought stress and production of legumes in Europe.- 5. Legume breeding for drought tolerance experience from the past using classical breeding approaches.- 6. Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) In Pulses : A Genomic Prospective to Drought.- 7. Marker Assisted Breeding in Legumes for Drought Tolerance.- 8. Marker-assisted breeding in common bean for drought tolerance.- 9. Marker-assisted breeding of pea for drought tolerance.- 10. Marker-assisted breeding in Faba bean for drought tolerance.- 11. Marker Assisted Breeding in Lentil for Drought Tolerance.- 12. Marker-assisted breeding of soybean for drought tolerance.- 13. Marker-Assisted Breeding in Mung Bean (Vigna radiata L.) for Drought Stress.- 14. Lablab (Lablab Purpureus L. Sweet): Current Developments in Breeding and Prospects for Drought-Tolerance, Improved Yield, and Sustainable Production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).- 15. Breeding Advancements in Neglected Legume Species for Drought Tolerance.- 16. Future perspectives in legume breeding for sustainable agriculture.