Lentil Breeding: Present State and Future Prospects

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is one of the vital grain legume crops that originated from L. culinaris Medik.ssp. orientalisin the Near East. It is an essential food source that is capable of contributing energy, proteins and iron to human diet. Major concern of lentil producing countries is to have a stable high seed yield in addition to resistance against abiotic and biotic stresses. The activities of domestication and selection in the course of crop evolution have led to reduction in genetic variation in the current cultivars and species, which is a major drawback for lentil breeding. The improvement of many monogenic traits has been carried out by conventional breeding techniques like selection and recombination. However, these improvements still lack in addressing economic traits like yield as they are governed by polygenes and G x E interaction. Various species in the genus Lens can aid to enhancement of genetic variation for target lentil traits to develop new varieties. Induced mutagenesis is another vital breeding method which can ease the availability of lentil genomic resources. Commendable success stories in applications of molecular markers and biotechnological techniques will further speed-up the development of improved varieties. This review article majourly dealt on present status on genetic improvement in lentil and a compendium of important aspects of lentil diversity, genetics and breeding with the way forward.