Utilisation Of Grain Legume Diversity

Abstract

The most important cool season grain legumes with a Mediterranean origin are chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), faba bean (Vicia faba L.), grasspea (Lathyrus sativus L.), lentil (Lens culinaris subsp. culinaris Medikus), lupins (Lupinus sp.) and field pea (Pisum sativum L.). Their association with Rhizobium and the resulting biological nitrogen fixation reduces the demand for inorganic nitrogen fertiliser in the cropping system and produces high protein seed. As a result, they are widely grown as break crops in cereal-based systems. The uses of these grain legumes in the diet and as feed are highly diverse. Equally diverse, as the preceding chapters illustrate, is the Mediterranean environment, within which the ancestors of the various grain legume crops are found in different, often allopathic, ecological habitats. This diversity in habitat has led to contrasting adaptation among species and to a suite of different legume options for farming systems. Partly as a consequence, the cool-season grain legume crops have spread widely from their Mediterranean origins. Some crops, such as lupins, are of major importance in other areas with a Mediterranean climate such as Southern Australia. Others are important in markedly different climates such as chickpea and lentil in the Indian sub-continent and faba bean in China. The field pea is a gift from the Near East to the rest of the world, as dry pea is now barely consumed in West Asia.KeywordsFaba BeanAscochyta BlightAntinutritional FactorFood LegumeInternational Crop Research InstituteThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.