Contribution of Grain Legumes in Combating Food and Nutrition In-Security in Different Regions of the World

Food security is a complex issue, linked to availability and access to food, malnutrition in the population, economic development, environment, and local and global trade. Malnutrition hinders healthy growth and proper development of the human immune system affecting neurological and cognitive development especially in children. Protein calorie malnutrition is a major nutritional problem in many developing countries. Considering the projected increase of world population to 9 billion by 2050, it is a huge challenge to meet the food and nutritional security of the growing world. Grain legumes are an important part of Afro-Asian diet and major providers of protein and calories in this region. Grain legumes are considered to be a good source of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other compounds that have significant nutritional arid health-related benefits which would very effectively address both malnutrition and food insecurity problems. Under the climate change scenario, there is an urgent need to diversify the cropping pattern by promoting cultivation of grain legumes due to their adaptation to different regions and climates. Important legumes that form a part of our daily diet in various forms include peas, beans, lentils, chickpea, pigeonpea, soybean, and groundnut. In this chapter we have briefly highlighted the global trade and economics-related aspects; and nutritional composition of important food legumes

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) also called Bengal gram or Garbanzo, is the largest produced food legume in South Asia and the third largest produced food legume globally, after common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and field pea (Piston sativum L.). Chickpea is grown in more than 50 countries (90% area in Asia, 4.7% in Africa, 3.1% in Oceania, 1.6% in Americas and 0.5% in Europe), but developing countries account for over 95% of its production (FAO, 2011). Over 75% of the chickpea production comes from South Asia, where India is the largest chickpea producing country accounting for 67% of the global chickpea production. The other major chickpea producing countries include Pakistan, Turkey, Australia, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Iran, 'Mexico and Canada (Figure 1). During the triennium 2006-2009, the global chickpea area was about 11.1 m ha with a production of 9.3 m tons and average yield of nearly 838 kg ha-1 (FAO, 2011)

Crops that feed the world 11. Pearl Millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.): an important source of food security, nutrition and health in the arid and semi-arid tropics

Pearl millet is a major cereal in the arid and semi-arid regions of Asia and Africa. It is primarily cultivated for grain production, but its stover is also valued as dry fodder. Pearl millet is resilient to climate change due to its inherent adaptability to drought and high temperatures. It is also tolerant of saline and acid soils, and is well adapted to marginal lands with low productivity. Pearl millet germplasm exhibits large genetic variability for yield components; and various agronomic, adaptation and nutritional traits. Open pollinated varieties and hybrids are two important cultivar options, but higher productivity is realized through hybrids. Pearl millet has fewer pest and disease problems compared to other cereals and is suited to different cropping systems. It is highly responsive to improved crop management practices, as witnessed in parts of India where it is grown as an irrigated summer crop that produces higher yields and better quality grain. Pearl millet has high nutritional value in terms of high levels of energy, dietary fibre, proteins with a balanced amino acid profile, many essential minerals, some vitamins, and antioxidants. These play a significant role in prevention of important human ailments such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. There is great potential for harnessing these positive attributes through genetic improvement, improved crop management, and grain processing and food products technologies. These should help to develop greater global awareness of the importance of this crop for food and nutritional security

Genetic Resources of Pearl Millet: Status and Utilization

Pearl millet is a very important crop of arid and semi-arid regions in Asia and Africa where it is the basis of food security of millions of people inhabiting in harsh and environmentally fragile ecosystem. Genetic resources of pearl millet including landraces, improved elite material, traditional cultivars, genetic stocks and wild relatives are very rich and, therefore, their characterization, documentation, conservation and distribution is very essential to ensure utilization in breeding programmes. This review assesses the status of pearl millet genetic resources, and identifi es the gaps in their collection, conservation and utilization. A total of 56,580 accessions (including possible duplicates) of pearl millet in 70 genebanks of 46 countries across world are available. Landraces represent the largest part of pearl millet germplasm, followed by breeding/research material and wild relatives. The Indian national collection includes 7,059 accessions at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. Global collections managed by ICRISAT comprise of 22,888 pearl millet accessions from 51 countries. However, only a very small fraction of these accessions has been utilized so far. Critical assessment of collection for geographical and trait-diversity gaps using various GIS tools revealed several gaps in germplasm collection from Asian and African continents. Almost all cultivated accessions have been characterized for 23 morpho-agronomic characters following prescribed pearl millet descriptors. A large variation exists for phenotypic and phenological traits among available germplasm. In general, Indian pearl millet landraces have mainly contributed for earliness, high tillering, high harvest index and local adaptation; whereas African material has been a good source of bigger panicles, large seed size, and disease resistance. Systematic evaluation and screening of germplasm has led to the identifi cation of specifi c sources of better grain quality, resistance to diseases and tolerance to abiotic stresses like drought and heat. These germplasm sources continue to play a critical role in crop improvement programmes across the world. Formation of trait-specifi c gene pools, core and minicore collections are likely to enhance the utilization of genetic resources to a greater degree. Strategies for further enriching the germplasm and increasing its use are discussed

Nutritional quality and health benefits of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.): a review

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crop grown and consumed all over the world, especially in the Afro-Asian countries. It is a good source of carbohydrates and protein, and protein quality is considered to be better than other pulses. Chickpea has significant amounts of all the essential amino acids except sulphur-containing amino acids, which can be complemented by adding cereals to the daily diet. Starch is the major storage carbohydrate followed by dietary fibre, oligosaccharides and simple sugars such as glucose and sucrose. Although lipids are present in low amounts, chickpea is rich in nutritionally important unsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic and oleic acids. b-Sitosterol, campesterol and stigmasterol are important sterols present in chickpea oil. Ca, Mg, P and, especially, K are also present in chickpea seeds. Chickpea is a good source of important vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, folate and the vitamin A precursor b-carotene. As with other pulses, chickpea seeds also contain anti-nutritional factors which can be reduced or eliminated by different cooking techniques. Chickpea has several potential health benefits, and, in combination with other pulses and cereals, it could have beneficial effects on some of the important human diseases such as CVD, type 2 diabetes, digestive diseases and some cancers. Overall, chickpea is an important pulse crop with a diverse array of potential nutritional and health benefits

Inheritance of protein content and its relationships with seed size, grain yield and other traits in chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), the second largest grown pulse crop of the world, is an important source of protein for millions of people, particularly in South Asia. Development of chickpea cultivars with further enhanced levels of protein is highly desired. This study was aimed at understanding the genetic control of protein content and its association with other traits so that suitable breeding strategies can be prepared for development of high protein content cultivars. A high protein (29.2 %) desi chickpea line ICC 5912 with pea-shaped small seed, grey seed coat and blue flower was crossed with a low protein (20.5 %) kabuli line ICC 17109 with owl’s head shaped large seed, beige seed coat, and white flower. The F2 population was evaluated under field conditions and observations were recorded on protein content and other traits on individual plants. The protein content of F2 segregants showed continuous distribution suggesting that it is a quantitative trait controlled by multiple genes. The blue flowered segregants had pea shaped seed with grey seed coat, while the white flowered segregants had owl’s head shaped seed with beige seed coat indicating pleiotropic effects of gene(s) on these traits. On an average, blue flowered segregants had smaller seed, lower grain yield per plant and higher protein content than the pink flowered and the white flowered segregants. The protein content was negatively correlated with seed size (r = −0.40) and grain yield per plant (r = −0.18). Thus, an increment in protein content is expected to have a negative effect on seed size and grain yield. However, careful selection of transgressive segregants with high protein content along with moderate seed size and utilizing diverse sources of high protein content will be usefull in developing chickpea cultivars with high protein content and high grain yield

Pulses research and development strategies for India

The world population is projected to grow from the current ~7.3 billion (in 2015) to ~8.9 billion by 2050 (United Nations Report 2004). Therefore, increasing food production to provide food and nutritional security is a challenge. Food and nutritional security becomes all the more important with the certainty of climate change scenario and ever increasing human population. These twin challenges can be addressed to by diversifying the global cropping pattern and by promoting food/grain legume crops, generally called Pulses in India. Legumes include ~750 genera and ~18000 species (Graham and Vance 2003; Polhill et al. 1981). The Legume family consists of important food grain, oilseed, forage, and agroforestry species. The domestication of legumes by humans dates back to Neolithic times. Chickpea (Cicerarietinum) is one of the seven Neolithic founder crops of the near East (Lev-Yadun et al. 2000). Some of the earliest domesticated legumes include: lentil (Lens culinaris; ~9000 yrs; Cohen 1977),beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and soybean (Glycine max; ~3000 year;Hymowitzand Singh, 1987; Kaplan and Lynch, 1999). Legumes form an important part of human daily diet especially in several developing and some developed countries and therefore sometimes legumes are considered as poor man’s meat..

Genetic variability and interrelationships of phenological, physicochemical and cooking quality traits in chickpea

Eighty-six chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes, including 44 Kabuli type and 42 Desi type, were evaluated for their phenological, physicochemical and cooking quality traits. There were significant differences among the genotypes for days to 50% flowering (34–81 d), days to maturity (85–122 d), number of pods per plant (13–66), number of seeds per plant (15–85), 100-seed weight (10.5–58.6 g), seed yield (561–1852 kg/ha), hydration capacity (0.11–0.68 g water/seed), hydration index (0.80–1.21), swelling capacity (0.11–0.7 ml/seed), seed volume (0.1–0.52 ml/seed) and cooking time (38–125 min). The Desi and Kabuli types of chickpea differed significantly from each other for all the traits except for hydration index, swelling index and cooking time. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was recorded for 100-seed weight, hydration capacity, swelling capacity and seed volume in both Desi and Kabuli genotypes. Seed size (100-seed weight and seed volume) showed significant positive correlations with hydration capacity and swelling capacity. Cooking time did not show any significant positive or negative correlation with any of the traits studied, including seed size, indicating that other additional factors may be involved in controlling cooking time. The results of this study indicate that it is possible to develop cultivars with faster cooking time in both Kabuli and Desi types and in all seed size categorie

Climate Change and Heat Stress Tolerance in Chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a cool-season food legume and suffers heavy yield losses when exposed to heat stress at the reproductive (flowering and podding) stage. Heat stress is increasingly becoming a severe constraint to chickpea production due to the changing scenario of chickpea cultivation and expected overall increase in global temperatures due to climate change. A temperature of 35 °C was found to be critical in differentiating heat-tolerant and heat-sensitive genotypes in chickpea under field conditions. Large genetic variations exist in chickpea for reproductive-stage heat tolerance. Many heat-tolerant genotypes have been identified through screening of germplasm/breeding lines under heat stress conditions in the field. A heat-tolerant breeding line ICCV 92944 has been released in two countries (as Yezin 6 in Myanmar and JG 14 in India) and is performing well under late-sown conditions. Heat stress during the reproductive phase adversely affects pollen viability, fertilization, pod set, and seed development, leading to abscission of flowers and pods, and substantial losses in grain yield. Studies on physiological mechanisms and genetics of heat tolerance, and identification of molecular markers and candidate genes for heat tolerance, are in progress. The information generated from these studies will help in developing effective and efficient breeding strategies for heat tolerance. The precision and efficiency of breeding programs for improving heat tolerance can be enhanced by integrating novel approaches, such as marker-assisted selection, rapid generation turnover, and gametophytic selection. Chickpea cultivars with enhanced heat tolerance will minimize yield losses in cropping systems/growing conditions where the crop is exposed to heat stress at the reproductive stage

Large Genetic Variability in Chickpea for Tolerance to Herbicides Imazethapyr and Metribuzin

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is known to be sensitive to many herbicides and, therefore, choices for using post-emergence herbicides for weed control are limited. The present study was aimed at identifying sources of tolerance to two herbicides with different modes of action (imazethapyr—amino acid synthesis inhibitor; and metribuzin—photosynthesis inhibitor) for use in breeding herbicide tolerant cultivars. Screening of 300 diverse chickpea genotypes (278 accessions from the reference set and 22 breeding lines) revealed large genetic variations for tolerance to herbicides imazethapyr and metribuzin. In general, the sensitivity of the genotypes to metribuzin was higher compared to that for imazethapyr. Several genotypes tolerant to metribuzin (ICC 1205, ICC 1164, ICC 1161, ICC 8195, ICC 11498, ICC 9586, ICC 14402 ICC 283) and imazethapyr (ICC 3239, ICC 7867, ICC 1710, ICC 13441, ICC 13461, ICC 13357, ICC 7668, ICC 13187) were identified, based on average herbicide tolerance scores from two experimental locations each. The herbicide tolerant lines identified in this study will be useful resources for development of herbicide tolerant cultivars and for undertaking genetic and physiological studies on herbicide tolerance in chickpea