ABSTRACT
Fabaceae (formerly Leguminosae) is the second most economically important botanical family for human consumption. However, historically grain legumes (a.k.a. pulses) have received less attention, resources and scientific efforts towards crop improvement, especially when compared to cereal crops (Foyer et al., 2016; Sivasankar et al., 2016). This is also reflected in the fact that the grain legume scientific community is significantly smaller at the global scale. Despite these limitations, modest increases in seed yield and productivity have been accomplished for most grain legumes (CGIAR, 2012; Curran et al., 2017; Vandemark et al., 2014). The challenge is to continue increasing productivity while reducing the significant seed yield gap between developed and developing countries/ regions. In addition, the economic and nutritional relevance of grain legumes has become a more prominent topic in recent years (Joshi and Rao, 2017; McDermott and Wyatt, 2017). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses (https://iyp2016.org/; https://www.fao.org/pulses-2016/en/). The reader may refer to other chapters within this book for more extensive information on the economic and social relevance of grain legumes today.
