ABSTRACT
Legumes are grown in more than 120 countries across all the continents. Ninety per cent of the global production of legumes is in a small group of countries such as India, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Iran, Mexico, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Australia, Spain, Canada, Syria, Morocco, and Egypt. Legumes are vegetarian sources of proteins and are an integral part of daily diet in several forms universally. Legume crops are great worth crops and play a dynamic role in crop diversification and economic sustainability of legume farming systems in dry areas. Most of the legume crops are grown under rainfed agroecosystem with poor level of input use which has resulted in low production. In this chapter we focus on (i) ecology and adaptation of legumes crop, (ii) physiological responses of grain legumes to stress environments, (iii) agronomic approaches to stress management.
