Legumes crops have an extraordinary importance for the agriculture and the environment. In a world urgently requiring more sustainable agriculture, food security and healthier diets the demand for legume crops is on the rise. The International Legume Society (http://ils.nsseme.com) organizes a triannual series of conferences with the goal to serve as a forum to discuss interdisciplinary progress on legume research. The Second International Legume Society Conference (ILS2) hosted in October 2016 at Troia, Portugal was the starting point for the Research Topic “Advances in Legume Research” in FiPS, that was also open to spontaneous submissions.

This book is a collection of updated studies related to current improvements in legume traits and their agricultural benefits. It discusses the physiological functions, genetics, and genomics of legume crops. Chapters address such topics as genetics and biological insights of seed traits in the context of climate change, improving quality and yields of legume seeds, new genetic resources from diverse germplasms, and agricultural benefits of legumes in agroecosystems.

Legumes have high potential for improving the nutritional quality of foods, but limited data on their bioactive compounds exists. Results of clinical and epidemiological studies suggest that natural antioxidants can protect us against oxidative stress that is closely associated with cancer and cardiovascular disease. Legumes are a valuable source of bioactive compounds such as phenolic compounds, peptides and non-nutritional factors. They are rich in several important micronutrients, including potassium, magnesium, folate, iron, and zinc, and are an important source of protein in vegetarian diets. They are among the only plant foods that provide significant amounts of the amino acid, lysine. Commonly consumed legumes are also rich in total and soluble fibre as well as in resistant starch. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the antioxidant activity and health aspects of legumes. The international spread of contributors will describe the key factors that influence consumer acceptance of legumes in the diet, as well as the known functional properties of legumes and legume based food products. It will serve as an excellent and up-to-date reference for food scientists, food chemists, researchers in human nutrition, dietetics and the chemistry of natural compounds.

This National Academy of Sciences report describes plants of the family Leguminosae, all of them greatly underexploited. Some are extensively used in one part of the world but unknown elsewhere; others are virtually unknown to science but have particular attributes that suggest they could become major crops in the future; a few are already widespread but their possibilities are not yet fully realized.Most of the plants described in this book have the capacity to provide their own nitrogenous fertilizer through bacteria that live in nodules on their roots; the bacteria chemically convert nitrogen gas from the air into soluble compounds that the plant can absorb and utilize. As a result, legumes generally require no additional nitrogenous fertilizer for average growth. This is advantageous because commercial nitrogenous fertilizers are now extremely expensive for peasant farmers. This report demonstrates how farmers in developing countries, by using leguminous plants, can grow useful crops while avoiding that expense. However, the plants to be discussed here should be seen as complements to, not as substitutes for, conventional tropical crops.

​​​This book is devoted to grain legumes and include eight chapters devoted to the breeding of specific grain legume crops and five general chapters dealing with important topics which are common to most of the species in focus. Soybean is not included in the book as it is commonly considered an oil crop more than a grain legume and is included in the Oil Crops Volume of the Handbook of Plant Breeding.​Legume species belong to the Fabaceae family and are characterized by their fruit, usually called pod. Several species of this family were domesticated by humans, such as soybean, common bean, faba bean, pea, chickpea, lentil, peanut, or cowpea. Some of these species are of great relevance as human and animal food. Food legumes are consumed either by their immature pod or their dry seeds, which have a high protein content. Globally, grain legumes are the most relevant source of plant protein, especially in many countries of Africa and Latin America, but there are some constraints in their production, such as a poor adaptation, pest and diseases and unstable yield. Current research trends in Legumes are focused on new methodologies involving genetic and omic studies, as well as new approaches to the genetic improvement of these species, including the relationships with their symbiotic rhizobia.

Food legumes are important constituents of the human diet and animal feed where they are crucial to a balanced diet, supplying high quality proteins. These crops also play an important role in low-input agricultural production systems by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Despite systematic and continuous breeding efforts through conventional methods, substantial genetic gains have not been achieved. With the rise in demand for food legumes/pulses and increased market value of these crops, research has focused on increasing production and improving the quality of pulses for both edible and industria.