Grain Legumes Under Abiotic Stress: Yield, Quality, Enhancement and Acclimatization

Legumes represent the most utilized plant family with 20,000 species and are among the most important crops worldwide, having major impacts on agriculture, the environment, and human/animal nutrition and health. Out of these legume species, grain legumes rank third behind cereals and oilseeds in World production, accounting for 27% of the world’s primary crop production. Grain legumes have a pivotal role as a dietary constituent for humans and animals and these alone contribute 33% of the dietary protein nitrogen (N) needs of humans besides being a source of income and livestock feed. Legumes are often exposed to environmental biotic and abiotic stresses that reduce productivity throughout the world. Particular abiotic stresses such as salt, drought, temperature, UV, nutrient deficiency and heavy metal are responsible for more than 50% yield reductions of some major crops. Thus, understanding of stress mechanisms and responses of legume plants provides advantages in stress management, mitigation of adverse stress impacts and leads to improve stress tolerance.