In marked contrast, around 16,000 species within the 650–700 genera of legumes have been identified as forming nitrogen-fixing symbioses with rhizobia. If such diversity is taken as a measure of evolutionary success or fitness, the legume family within the Fabales has been considerably more successful than any other family of nodulating plants in the closely-related orders. Why is it that nitro...

background: the aim of this study was to investigate the relation between legume consumption and the metabolic syndrome among isfahan in female nurses.   methods: this cross-sectional study was performed among 420 isfahanian female nurses, selected by a multistage cluster random sampling method. usual dietary intakes of subjects were assessed using a 106-item semi-quantitative food frequency qu...

The solvent extracted vegetable seed oils of Cucurbitaceae family viz. Bitter gourd (Momordica charentia), Small bitter gourd (Momordica dioica), Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siscraria) and Ridge gourd (Luffa acutangula) were evaluated as grain protectant against callosobruchus chinensis on the stored legume-pulse grains. All the vegetable seed oils were found effective as legume-pulse grain protect...

This Special Issue of Functional Plant Biology is now available! Prof. Peter Gresshoff (Director) and Dr Christine Beveridge (UQ node Chief Investigator) were guest editors of the edition, which published findings from the 3rd International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics (ICLGG-3). ICLGG-3 was hosted by the CILR in April 2006. The cover photo is a soybean root cross section, taken b...

the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of addition of pulses in crop sequences, crop residue management, and application of fertilizer n on soil nitrogen content, soil organic carbon, nutrient uptake, and its consequences for wheat yields. the field experiments were carried out from 2009 to 2012 in the sub-humid and sub-tropical zone of northern india. the treatments were (i...

Legume rotation has allowed a consistent increase in crop yield and consequently in human population since the antiquity. Legumes will also be instrumental in our ability to maintain the sustainability of our agriculture while facing the challenges of increasing food and biofuel demand. Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus have emerged during the last decade as two major model systems for le...

Food legume crops play important roles in conservation farming systems and contribute to food security in the developing world. However, in many regions of the world, their production has been adversely affected by drought. Although water scarcity is a severe abiotic constraint of legume crops productivity, it remains unclear how the effects of drought co-vary with legume species, soil texture,...

This paper reviews the current use of self-regenerating pasture legumes in the farming systems of southern Europe. Annual legumes are mainly the base for the improvement of low quality native pastures in extensive farming systems. Traditional pasture legumes such as subterranean clovers and annual medics are the base plants of Mediterranean pastures, and are essential for pasture improvement of...

The identification of genes under positive selection is a central goal of evolutionary biology. Many legume species, including Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean) and Phaseolus lunatus (lima bean), have important ecological and economic value. In this study, we sequenced and assembled the transcriptome of one Phaseolus species, lima bean. A comparison with the genomes of six other legume species, ...

Carcass and meat quality of Thai native cattle, fattened for 2 years on Guinea grass (Panicum maxima) and Guinea grass-legume (Stylosanthes guianensis) pastures, were investigated in twelve 3-years old males. Groups had similar carcass quality except for kidney fat percentage (higher in cattle of the grass-legume group). This group also had a lighter meat (Longissimus dorsi, Infraspinatus) than...