Tackling Lentil Biotic Stresses in the Genomic Era

Abstract

[EN] Lentils are already one of the main pulses of the world, as they are one of the main sources of protein for humans. As a crop, they are also gaining momentum because the rusticity and tolerance to water scarcity of some varieties are a good fit with the current global warming trend and climate change in general. However, while the harvested area and overall production have drastically increased over the last decades, yield has only experienced very modest increments. The reasons are two-fold. First, pathogens are affecting the crop as never before, likely due to not only the changing climate but also to the expansion of lentil cultivation to new geographic areas. Second, genomics-aided breeding is far behind many other crops. This is in partly due to the lack of genomic tools currently available to researchers. Progress is being made to adopt high-throughput genomic methods, and researchers will be able to tackle lentil gene discovery and breeding for pathogen resistance and other biotic stresses more efficiently in the coming years. We outline the current situation, novel findings, and prospects of lentil research for biotic stresses