Advances in Abiotic Stresses Management in Pulse Crops
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53550/jfl.v39i1.2477Keywords:
Climate resilience, Emerging issues integrated breeding, Pre-breeding, SustainabilityAbstract
The pulse crops cultivation is in vogue since time immemorial in different parts of the world under varying growing environments, different seasons and agro-ecological regions. The nutri-dense grains of pulses when complimented with cereals, make perfect diet for the largely vegetarian population. In India, more than a dozen and half pulse crops are cultivated under varying environmental conditions covering ~27-28 m ha area producing about 24-25 mt of pulses’ grains annually. Out of these pulse crops, major ones are chickpea, pigeonpea, mungbean, urdbean, lentil, pea, lathyrus and rajmash. The cowpea, moth bean, horse gram, cluster bean, etc. are also under cultivation in sizeable area. Some of the crops like mungbean, urdbean and cowpea are cultivated during all three seasons viz., kharif, rabi and spring/summer. The abiotic stresses such as low and high temperatures, intermittent droughts and end of the season drought, soil salinity, alkalinity and soil acidity etc. are known to limit productivity of most of the commodities and crops and pulse crops are not the exception. Among various abiotic stresses affecting pulses production and yields are heat (during rabi, kharif and spring/summer season) and cool temperature (during rabi season), frost (during rabi season), intermittent droughts (mostly during kharif season), and end of the season drought (during rabi season), beside soil salinity/ alkalinity, soil acidity, nutrients deficiencies and metal toxicities those are known to affect crops’ yield in all the seasons. In India, National Agricultural Research and Education System (NARES) has strong network in form of All India Coordinated Research Projects, national institutes (Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Indian Agricultural Research Institute), and agricultural universities. The international research institutes International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Area (ICARDA), International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) and several advance research institutes those are in India and elsewhere also carry out research leading to technology development including varieties and management practices etc. besides generating scientific knowledge. The plant genetic resources are treasure of the genes those are required for designing new varieties of crops. The national Genebank located at ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBPGR), New Delhi has vast collection of germplasm accessions including primitive landraces, crop wild relatives, elite breeding lines and trait specific donors. Besides, ICRISAT, ICARDA, CIAT, and WorldVeg also maintain huge number of accessions of grain legumes. The tools and techniques for throughput phenotyping have been standardized, and facilities have been created at several research institutions for identification of donor parents for their utilization in breeding programs. During recent past, many varieties of pulse crops including chickpea, lentil, mungbean, fieldpea, rajmash etc. having tolerance against drought, heat and low temperature stress have been developed and released. The present lecture highlights available research network, tools and techniques, genetic resources available and utilized, and achievements made in terms of development of varieties and other major management techniques. We are also discussing way forward to develop climate resilient varieties of the pulse crops not only to bring desired level of stability in yield but also to increase production and improve productivity of the targeted pulse crops further which will ensure food and nutritional security, better soil health and sustainable agricultural production system for next generation.
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