radiata), common bean ( Phaseolus spp.) and urd bean ( Vigna mungo), which are mainly grown in hot and humid conditions ( Singh and Singh, 2011). Warm-season food legumes include pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan), cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata), mungbean ( Vigna radiata var. Cool-season food legumes include broad bean ( Vicia faba), lentil ( Lens culinaris), lupin ( Lupinus spp.), dry pea ( Pisum sativum), chickpea ( Cicer arietinum), grass pea ( Lathyrus sativus), and common vetch ( Vicia sativa) ( Andrews and Hodge, 2010). Legume crops can be divided into two groups according to their ability to grow in different seasons, namely cool-season food legumes and warm- or tropical-season food legumes ( Miller et al., 2002 Toker and Yadav, 2010).
Legumes belong to the family Fabaceae/Leguminosae (with about 700 genera and 18,000 species). Omics approaches unravel different mechanisms underlying thermotolerance, which is imperative to understand the processes of molecular responses toward high-temperature stress.
Through various breeding techniques, heat tolerance in major legumes can be enhanced to improve performance in the field. Food legumes exposed to high-temperature stress during reproduction show flower abortion, pollen and ovule infertility, impaired fertilization, and reduced seed filling, leading to smaller seeds and poor yields. The reproductive period is vital in the life cycle of all plants and is susceptible to high-temperature stress as various metabolic processes are adversely impacted during this phase, which reduces crop yield. High-temperature stress at the time of the reproductive stage is becoming a severe limitation for production of grain legumes as their cultivation expands to warmer environments and temperature variability increases due to climate change. Heat stress imposes challenges for legume crops and has deleterious effects on the morphology, physiology, and reproductive growth of plants. Legumes are well-known for their impact on agricultural sustainability as well as their nutritional and health benefits. These temperature increases can result in heat stress- a severe threat to crop production in most countries.
Ambient temperatures are predicted to rise in the future owing to several reasons associated with global climate changes.
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