The papers included in this Special Issue address a variety of important aspects of plant biodiversity and genetic resources, including definitions, descriptions, and illustrations of different components and their value for food and nutrition security, breeding, and environmental services. Furthermore, comprehensive information is provided regarding conservation approaches and techniques for plant genetic resources, policy aspects, and results of biological, genetic, morphological, economic, social, and breeding-related research activities. The complexity and vulnerability of (plant) biodiversity and its inherent genetic resources, as an integral part of the contextual ecosystem and the human web of life, are clearly demonstrated in this Special Issue, and for several encountered problems and constraints, possible approaches or solutions are presented to overcome these.

This book looks at the current state of food security and climate change, discusses the issues that are affecting them, and the actions required to ensure there will be enough food for the future. By casting a much wider net than most previously published books—to include select novel approaches, techniques, genes from crop diverse genetic resources or relatives—it shows how agriculture may still be able to triumph over the very real threat of climate change. Food Security and Climate Change integrates various challenges posed by changing climate, increasing population, sustainability in crop productivity, demand for food grains to sustain food security, and the anticipated future need for nutritious quality foods. It looks at individual factors resulting from climate change, including rising carbon emission levels, increasing temperature, disruptions in rainfall patterns, drought, and their combined impact on planting environments, crop adaptation, production, and management. The role of plant genetic resources, breeding technologies of crops, biotechnologies, and integrated farm management and agronomic good practices are included, and demonstrate the significance of food grain production in achieving food security during climate change. Food Security and Climate Change is an excellent book for researchers, scientists, students, and policy makers involved in agricultural science and technology, as well as those concerned with the effects of climate change on our environment and the food industry.

​The field of plant breeding has grown rapidly in the last decade with breakthrough research in genetics and genomics, inbred development, population improvement, hybrids, clones, self-pollinated crops, polyploidy, transgenic breeding and more. This book discusses the latest developments in all these areas but explores the next generation of needs and discoveries including omics beyond genomics, cultivar seeds and intellectual and property rights. This book is a leading-edge publication of the latest results and forecasts important areas of future needs and applications.​

The World population will reach 9 billion by 2050, with the majority of this growth occurring in developing countries. On the other hand, one in nine of the World's population suffers from chronic hunger, the vast majority of which live in developing countries. We therefore need to find new and sustainable solutions to feed this increasing population and alleviate the predicted negative impact of global changes on crop production. This e-Book deals with new strategies to improve food security and livelihoods in rural communities, reduce vulnerability, increase resilience and mitigate lthe impact of climate change and land degradation on agriculture. This collection of 18 articles addresses the major abiotic factors limiting crop production worldwide, how to characterize and exploit the available plant biodiversity to increase production and sustainability in agrosystems, and the use of beneficial microbes to improve production and reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides.

Grain legumes, including common-bean, chickpea, pigeonpea, pea, cowpea, lentil and others, form important constituents of global diets, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Despite this significant role, global production has increased only marginally in the past 50 years. The slow production growth, along with a rising human population and improved buying capacity has substantially reduced the per capita availability of food legumes. Changes in environmental climate have also had significant impact on production, creating a need to identify stable donors among genetic resources for environmentally robust genes and designing crops resilient to climate change. Genetic and Genomic Resources of Grain Legume Improvement is the first book to bring together the latest resources in plant genetics and genomics to facilitate the identification of specific germplasm, trait mapping and allele mining to more effectively develop biotic and abiotic-stress-resistant grains. This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, crop biologists and students working with crop development. - Explores origin, distribution and diversity of grain legumes - Presents information on germplasm collection, evaluation and maintenance - Offers insight into pre-breeding/germplasm enhancement efforts - Integrates genomic and genetic resources in crop improvement - Internationally contributed work

We are very happy that in this symposium researchers from a multitude of countries around the world are coming together in order to discuss issues about breeding for intra- and inter-specific diversity as well for annuals as for perennials. THe submitted abstracts show that the activities are far wider than just the cereals that are covered by the EU directive and that there will be a need to expand the activities on the legal side.

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is a crop of small land holding farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. It has a number of usages starting from protein rich food to vegetarian families; fuel wood; nitrogen supplier to soil; recycling minerals in soil to animal feed etc. Pigeonpea has been considered to be originated and domesticated in central India from where it travelled to different parts of the world such as Africa and Latin America. In ongoing scenario of climate change, biotic and especially abiotic stresses will make the conditions more challenging for entire agriculture. This volume focusing on the pigeonpea genome will collate the information on the genome sequencing and its utilization in genomics activities, with a focus on the current findings, advanced tools and strategies deployed in pigeonpea genome sequencing and analysis, and how this information is leading to direct outcomes for plant breeders and subsequently to farmers.

Recent advances in plant genomics and molecular biology have revolutionized our understanding of plant genetics, providing new opportunities for more efficient and controllable plant breeding. Successful techniques require a solid understanding of the underlying molecular biology as well as experience in applied plant breeding. Bridging the gap between developments in biotechnology and its applications in plant improvement, Molecular Plant Breeding provides an integrative overview of issues from basic theories to their applications to crop improvement including molecular marker technology, gene mapping, genetic transformation, quantitative genetics, and breeding methodology.

This book sheds new light on the chickpea genome sequencing and resequencing of chickpea germplasm lines and provides insights into classical genetics, cytogenetics, and trait mapping. It also offers an overview of the latest advances in genome sequencing and analysis. The growing human population, rapid climate changes and limited amounts of arable land are creating substantial challenges in connection with the availability and affordability of nutritious food for smallholder farmers in developing countries. In this context, climate smart crops are essential to alleviating the hunger of the millions of poor and undernourished people living in developing countries. In addition to cereals, grain legumes are an integral part of the human diet and provide sustainable income for smallholder farmers in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Among grain legumes, the chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is the second most important in terms of production and productivity. Besides being a rich source of proteins, it can fix atmospheric nitrogen through symbiosis with rhizobia and increase the input of combined nitrogen. Several abiotic stresses like drought, heat, salinity, together with biotic stresses like Fusarium wilt, Ascochyta blight, and Botrytis grey mould have led to production losses, as the chickpeas is typically grown in the harsh climates of our planet’s semi-arid regions.