Book Review: Legumes under Environmental Stress: Yield, Improvement and Adaptations

Proteins are among the major constituents of a healthy and balanced human diet. Legumes have been serving as a human food-source for many centuries (Imsande, 2003). Notably, grain legumes (pulses) are very rich in protein-types and contribute to the human protein requirements as a primary and affordable source of proteins and minerals (Bohra et al., 2014). The United Nations has declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses and also advocated pulses as nutritious seeds for a sustainable future (FAO, 2016). However, varied stress factors can hamper the legume-productivity because many of the world's most important food legumes are grown in arid and semi-arid regions of the world (Varshney et al., 2009). Taking aforesaid points into account, entitled above edited book aimed to: (a) discuss environmental stress responses and underlying mechanisms of major legumes; and (b) highlight important avenues for legume health-improvement and stress-adaptation. Though not done by the editors chapters discussed herein can be divided into two major groups. Comprising nine contributions, the first group gives insights into the legume stress responses. The second group, with eight contributions, highlights approaches for improving legume stress tolerance. Major insights into legume responses to a number of abiotic stresses including salinity, nutrient-deficiencies, pesticides, and temperature regimes are nicely overviewed. The impact of increasing soil salinity on legume crop health and productivity is particularly important, due to the sensitivity of legumes to salinity stress. Information related to leguminous crop genome sequences has also been well-summarized. The responses of legumes to nutrient deficiencies are elaborated, including their control measures with major micro and macro mineral nutrients. Osmotic stress is argued to be a factor impacting the legume–rhizobia symbiotic relationship by severely impairing nodule integrity and functioning. Two chapters are dedicated to discussion of the responses of chickpea (the third most important pulse crop) to major abiotic and biotic stresses. An overview is presented of chickpea responses to temperature regimes. The lack of simple and accurate screening procedures for screening parental genotypes and breeding populations for various abiotic stresses is advocated as a major bottleneck in the development of low temperature stress-tolerant chickpea. Contributions also provide details on the pesticide uptake, metabolism, persistence, and impacts in major leguminous crops. It is revealed that pesticides can severely impair biological nitrogen-fixation by impacting nodule formation and nitrogenase activity, causing oxidative stress, and damaging important components of the antioxidant defense system. Exploration of pesticide-tolerant bacterial strains is emphasized …