World Crops Cool Season Food Legumes

The genesis of the International Food Legume Research Conference (IFLRC) can be traced back to 1983 - and so this Volume, the Proceedings of that Conference, has had a gestation period of close to five years. Professor Norman Simmonds, the perennial Book Review Editor of Experimental Agriculture, has expressed the opinion (vol. 22, p. 201, 1986) that "Many symposial volumes are just plain awful!" Elsewhere (Nature vol. 312, pp. 201-2, 1984), Anthony Watkinson - then a Commissioning Editor at Oxford University Press has described several reasons which have led him to believe that "Conference proceedings - symposia - are generally disliked . . . . To put it mildly, this type of publication has a bad name". The problems, from an author's perspective, of contributing to any many-authored publication are aired in an exchange of correspondence in Biologist (vol. 30, pp. 123 and 180, 1983; and vol. 31, pp. 3 and 69,1984). And from the editor's viewpoint, D. J. Weatherall - then Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford - has described (Nature vol. 317, p.

The goal of the Second International Food Legume Research Conference held in Cairo, Egypt was to build on the success of the first conference held nearly 6 years earlier at Spokane, Washington, USA. It was at that first conference where the decision was made to hold the second Conference in Egypt and so near the ancestral home of these food legume crops. It has been a long held view that the cool season food legumes had their origin in the Mediterranean basin and the Near-east arc, and there is little doubt that food legumes were a staple food of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The cool season food legumes have the reputation for producing at least some yield under adverse conditions of poor fertility and limited moisture, i. e. , in circumstances where other crops are likely to fail completely. Yields of cool season food legumes are particularly poor in those regions where they are most important to local populations. The influx of more profitable crops such as wheat, maize, and soybeans have gradually relegated the food legumes to marginal areas with poor fertility and limited water which exposes them to even greater degrees of stress. In the past two decades, production of food legumes has declined in most of the developing countries while at the same time it has expanded greatly in Canada, Australia, and most notably in Turkey.

This book covers all aspect of legume production management technologies, plant ecological response, nutrients management, biological nitrogen fixation, molecular approaches, potential cultivars, biodiversity management under climate change. Also covered are various aspects of legume management under climate change such as, production management technology, ecology & adaptation, diseases, and international trade; physiology and crops response to nutrients, drought, salinity, and water use efficiency; Biodiversity management, molecular approaches and biological Nitrogen fixation; climate change and strategies. This book presents the most comprehensive and up to date review of research on different cool season grain legume crops, nutrients management, biotic and abiotic stresses management, agronomical approaches for drought management, salinity, drought, weed management and water use efficiency, impact on international trade around the world.

Cool season grain legumes including pea, faba bean, lentil, chickpea, and grass pea are extensively grown in many parts of the world. They are a primary source of proteins in human diet. This volume deals with the most recent advances in genetics, genomics, and breeding of these crops. The "state of the art" for the individual crops differs; however, their phylogenetic proximity justifies the utility of the knowledge available in one crop for speeding up research and improvement in other crops. The first five chapters are devoted individually to the five crops, followed by four chapters presenting comprehensive reviews on recent advances in the fields of functional genomics, comparative genomics, proteomics and metabolomics, and transgenesis as well as three general chapters on nitrogen fixation, broomrapes, and future prospects. This book contains information useful not only to the scientists and scholars working on the cool season grain legumes but also to those working on other legume species.

The protein molecule is the basic building block of every living entity. Its deficiency leads to restricted growth and development of individuals. Globally, such malnutrition is on the rise due to various reasons such as rapid population growth, stagnation of productivity, and ever-rising costs. Millions of people, especially in developing and under-developed countries, suffer from protein malnutrition and the only possible solution is to encourage farmers to grow high-protein food legume crops in their fields for domestic consumption. This, however, could be possible if farmers are provided with new cultivars with high yield, and resistance to major insects, diseases, and key abiotic stresses. The major food legume crops are chickpea, cowpea, common bean, groundnut, lentil, pigeonpea, and soybean. Predominantly, the legume crops are grown under a subsistence level and, therefore, in comparison to cereals and horticultural crops their productivity is low and highly variable. The crop breeders around the globe are engaged in breeding suitable cultivars for harsh and changing environments but success has been limited and not up to needs. With the recent development of new technologies in plant sciences, efforts are being made to help under-privileged farmers through breeding new cultivars which will produce more protein per unit of land area. In this book, the contributors analyze the constraints, review new technologies, and propose a future course of crop breeding programs in seven cold and warm season legume crops.

ICARDA focuses its research efforts on areas with a dry summer, where precipitation in winter ranges from 200 mm to 600 mm. The Center has a global responsibility for the improvement of barley, lentil and faba bean, and a regional responsibility - in West Asia and North Africa - for the improvement of wheat chickpea and pasture and forage crops and the associated farming systems. Much of ICARDA's research is carried out on a 948-hectare farm at its headquarters at Tel Hadya, about 35 km south-west of Aleppo. ICARDA also manages other sites where it tests material under a variety of agroecological conditions in Syria and Lebanon. However, the full scope of ICARDA's activities can be appreciated only when account is taken of the cooperative research carried out with many countries in West Asia and North Africa.

Proceedings of the Third International Food Legumes Research Conference