Grass Pea (Lathyrus sativus L.)—A Sustainable and Resilient Answer to Climate Challenges

Abstract

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is an annual cool-season grain legume widely cultivated in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the Mediterranean region. It is a stress-resilient crop with high nutritional value, considered a promising source of traits to breed for adaptation/mitigation of climate change effects. It is also reported as a suitable crop for more sustainable production systems such as intercropping. In this review, we elaborate an integrative perspective including not only an agronomic-based but also a variety-breeding-based strategy in grass pea to deal with climate change impacts, summarizing the current knowledge on grass pea biotic/abiotic stress resistance. Additionally, we highlight the importance of implementing fundamental techniques to create diversity (as interspecific hybridization or gene editing) and increase genetic gains (as speed breeding or the efficient identification of breeding targets via genomics) in the development of multiple stress-resistant varieties that simultaneously provide yield and quality stability under climate vulnerable environments.