Legume DNA Reveals Secrets to Hardier, Drought-Resistant Crops

Are our climate changes, scientists are examining new strains of crops to see which ones are the hardiest. Now some of the most underappreciated crops could become the most valuable tools in agriculture. Researchers have uncovered new genetic data that may enable scientists to uncover why certain legume crops succeed where others fail.

Thousands of species belong to the legume family, but only a few are used in mainstream agriculture, such as soybean, peanut and chickpea. Yet dozens more are underutilized. In order to see whether other strains could be used, the researchers sequenced and annotated the transcriptomes of four underutilized legumes that are native to Africa: hyacinth bean, grasspea, winged bean and Bambara groundnut.

"These legumes were selected because of their extreme tolerances, but so far only limited research has been carried out," said Mark Chapman, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Hyacinth bean is one of the most drought-tolerant legumes, often used as forage for livestock, and grasspea is so resilient to drought that it is grown as an insurance crop. Winged bean expresses strong disease tolerance and Bambara groundnut grows on marginal soils where even other legumes struggle."

The researchers identified between 32,446 and 34,401 total genes. In addition, they identified nearly 3,000 genetic markers that will help researchers investigate the genetic variation within and between different species. These markers will be essential for linking genetic sequences to the traits demonstrated by the legumes.

So why is this important? Scientists will be better able to identify legume species and find regions of the genomes that play a role in stress tolerance. This, in turn, will aid future breeding programs that focus on increasing stress tolerance.

As our climate changes, these findings could be crucial for the future of breeding legumes. In fact, it could be a huge step forward in terms of creating hardier and more drought-resistant plants.

The findings are published in the journal Applications in Plant Sciences.

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