Table Of ContentSatbir Singh Gosal
Shabir Hussain Wani Editors
Accelerated
Plant
Breeding,
Volume 3
Food Legumes
Accelerated Plant Breeding, Volume 3
Satbir Singh Gosal • Shabir Hussain Wani
Editors
Accelerated Plant Breeding,
Volume 3
Food Legumes
Editors
Satbir Singh Gosal Shabir Hussain Wani
Former Director of Research Mountain Research Centre for Field Crops
Punjab Agricultural University SKUAST-Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu
Ludhiana, Punjab, India Kashmir, India
ISBN 978-3-030-47305-1 ISBN 978-3-030-47306-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47306-8
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Professor Neil Clifford Turner
Prof. Neil C. Turner is an Adjunct Professor
at the University of Western Australia and
Visiting Professor at Lanzhou University,
Lanzhou, China, and the North West
Agricultural and Forestry University,
Yangling, China. Born in Preston in the
United Kingdom, he was educated at
Balshaw’s Grammar School, Leyland, UK,
1951–1958, was awarded a BSc in
Agricultural Science from Reading
University, Reading, UK, in 1962, a PhD in
Agronomy from Adelaide University,
Adelaide, Australia in 1968, and a DSc in
Agriculture from Reading University in 1983.
Prof. Turner’s research career began at the
Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station,
New Haven, Connecticut, USA, where he was
an Assistant Plant Physiologist from 1967 to
1974. In 1974 he joined CSIRO Plant
Industry in Canberra, Australia, as a Senior
Research Scientist and remained with CSIRO
for 31 years until retirement in 2005. In
1984, Prof. Turner was appointed Research
Leader of the newly-established CSIRO
Dryland Crops and Soils Research Unit in
Perth, Australia, and remained with CSIRO
in Perth as a Chief Research Scientist until
2005. Subsequent to retiring from CSIRO, he
was appointed as the Director of the Centre
for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture at
the University of Western Australia, Perth,
Australia, 2006–2007; Winthrop Research
Professor in the UWA Institute of Agriculture
and Centre for Plant Genetics and Breeding,
2008–2015; and Adjunct Professor in the
UWA Institute of Agriculture and UWA
School of Agriculture and Environment from
2016 to the present. Prof. Turner was a
Visiting Scholar in the Department of Botany
at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK,
in 1973; an Alexander von Humboldt
Research Fellow in the Department of Plant
Ecology at the University of Bayreuth,
Germany, in 1982; a Visiting Scientist at the
International Rice Research Institute, Los
Baños, The Philippines, in 1983; and an
Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in
the Department of Botany at the University
of Würzburg, Germany, in 1993.
Prof. Turner has been recognized for his
contributions to agricultural science and the
environment in Australia and internationally.
He was made a Fellow of the American
Society of Agronomy in 1982, a Fellow of the
Crop Science Society of America in 1985, a
Fellow of the Australian Academy of
Technological Sciences and Engineering in
1992, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of
Agricultural Science and Technology in
1995, a Foreign Fellow of the National
Academy of Agricultural Sciences (India) in
2003, and was awarded a medal by the
Australian Institute of Agricultural Science
and Technology in 1993, an Australian
Commonwealth Centenary Medal in 2003,
the Chancellor’s Medal by the University of
Western Australia in 2012, the Dunhuang
Award by the Gansu Provincial Government
in China in 2011, and a Friendship Award by
the Government of the People’s Republic of
China in 2012 for excellence in research and
outstanding contributions to dryland
agriculture in Australia, India, and China.
Prof. Turner’s research has focused on the
agronomic and physiological responses of
crops and trees to water deficits, the
adaptation of crops to water-limited
environments, and the optimization of
productivity and sustainability of cropping
systems in the Mediterranean climatic
regions of Australia through both
management and breeding. This led more
recently to a research focus on the
implications of climate change for crop
production in Australia, East Timor, and
China. Prof. Turner has edited 12 books or
special issues of journals and his research
and that of his students and collaborators
has been published in almost 400 peer-
reviewed journal papers and book chapters.
Prof. Turner was a contributor to the
establishment of course development and
research training to PhD level at Haryana
Agricultural University in the late 1970s,
and for nearly 10 years he was the Research
Coordinator for a project that successfully
incorporated capacity building and the
development of drought-resistant chickpea
germplasm for India and Australia funded by
the Australian Centre for International
Agricultural Research.
This book is dedicated to Professor Neil
Clifford Turner for his lifetime contribution
to the betterment of sustainable agricultural
production in a changing environment and
for his training of many students and
scientists in developing and developed
countries.
Foreword
Food legumes are amongst some of the earliest food crops to be domesticated and
cultivated by man and still constitute important sources of dietary protein (20–45%)
for populations living in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Sometimes referred to as
the ‘poor man’s meat’, they are an important source of lysine, iron, phosphorous,
calcium, zinc and magnesium, folate (vitamin B9), riboflavin (vitamin B2), and
vitamin K andantioxidants, making them an ideal supplement for cereals. In differ-
ent countries they are consumed as immature seeds, dry seeds, roasted seeds, condi-
ments, ground for flour for baking or roasting, and as fermented products. With the
ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, they can be grown without added fertiliser nitro-
gen, help to improve the fertility of the soil for subsequent crops and improve soil
health. A large number of improved cultivars possessing higher pod/seed yield,
resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, better nutritional and cooking qualities, and
early maturity have been developed. However, for food legumes in general, seed
yields are not yet comparable to the cereal crops, even when the differences in
energy requirements for proteins versus carbohydrates are taken into account. The
harvest index of food legumes is generally 15–20% compared to 45–50% for cere-
als such as wheat and rice. Nevertheless, several food legumes flourish in poor soils
and adverse weather conditions and are preferred by farmers, especially for rainfed
conditions and for crop rotations to maintain soil health. An efficient genetic
improvement program is necessary in food legumes to meet the growing demand for
food and nutritional security. There is a need to accelerate the breeding process for
germplasm enhancement and development of new cultivars. In this situation, inno-
vative techniques/technologies such as embryo culture, speed breeding, marker-
assisted selection, transgenic breeding and genome editing can be exploited to
supplement/complement conventional breeding approaches. Accelerated Plant
Breeding: Food Legumes, edited by Dr. Satbir Singh Gosal and Dr. Shabir Hussain
Wani, includes chapters on the important food legumes: chickpea (Cicer arietinum
L.), pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.), lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), green
gram (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek), urdbean (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper), com-
mon bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), field pea (Pisum sativum), soybean (Glycine max
(L.) Merr.), and horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc.). This book
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