The legume family (Fabaceae) is an important plant family for the provision of food and feed. Legumes have symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, giving them highly valuable agronomic characteristics: reduced needs for fertilizer application, products with a high protein content and improved agronomic, environmental and economic sustainability. Less investments have been made in breeding of improved varieties of grain and forage legumes compared to grain and forage species in the grass family. In order to fulfill the protein needs of the future, and make use of the advantages that legumes can provide, it is necessary to develop efficient breeding strategies for the legume crops and improve diversification, crop productivity, yield stability and protein quality of the products.
This Research Topic aims to gather key contributions resulting from a Horizon 2020 project -
EUCLEG: Breeding Forage and Grain Legumes to Increase EU’s and China’s Protein Self-Sufficiency. We welcome all article types falling under the following topics:
- Development of molecular marker resources and genotyping tools for breeding purposes
- Genetic resources, characterization of genetic variation, structure and accessibility to data and seeds in gene banks
- Characterization of traits and its variation, phenotyping methodology, and genetic control of traits
- Development of new breeding methods
We acknowledge the initiation of this Research Topic by the EUCLEG - Breeding Forage and Grain Legumes to Increase EU’s and China’s Protein Self-Sufficiency (Horizon 2020 project). Dr. Åshild Ergon is responsible for the contribution from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dr. Leif Skøt is responsible for the contribution from Aberystwyth University, and Dr. Deyue Yu is responsible for the contribution from Nanjing Agricultural University. Dr. Thomas Henry Noel Ellis and Dr. Thomas Wood are not participants of the EUCLEG project.The legume family (Fabaceae) is an important plant family for the provision of food and feed. Legumes have symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, giving them highly valuable agronomic characteristics: reduced needs for fertilizer application, products with a high protein content and improved agronomic, environmental and economic sustainability. Less investments have been made in breeding of improved varieties of grain and forage legumes compared to grain and forage species in the grass family. In order to fulfill the protein needs of the future, and make use of the advantages that legumes can provide, it is necessary to develop efficient breeding strategies for the legume crops and improve diversification, crop productivity, yield stability and protein quality of the products.
This Research Topic aims to gather key contributions resulting from a Horizon 2020 project -
EUCLEG: Breeding Forage and Grain Legumes to Increase EU’s and China’s Protein Self-Sufficiency. We welcome all article types falling under the following topics:
- Development of molecular marker resources and genotyping tools for breeding purposes
- Genetic resources, characterization of genetic variation, structure and accessibility to data and seeds in gene banks
- Characterization of traits and its variation, phenotyping methodology, and genetic control of traits
- Development of new breeding methods
We acknowledge the initiation of this Research Topic by the EUCLEG - Breeding Forage and Grain Legumes to Increase EU’s and China’s Protein Self-Sufficiency (Horizon 2020 project). Dr. Åshild Ergon is responsible for the contribution from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dr. Leif Skøt is responsible for the contribution from Aberystwyth University, and Dr. Deyue Yu is responsible for the contribution from Nanjing Agricultural University. Dr. Thomas Henry Noel Ellis and Dr. Thomas Wood are not participants of the EUCLEG project.