Global Lentil Production: Constraints and Strategies

Lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris) is an important food legume crop with global
production of 3.59 million tonnes. The crop suffers substantial yield losses from
various biotic and abiotic stresses. Past efforts have been directed towards
developing improved varieties with resistance to one or the other biotic stress,
improving the seed size and shortening the crop duration to fit lentil in various
cropping systems. In the past one decade, production and productivity of lentil
have stagnated in the traditional base of South Asia. In order to break the current
yield plateau in lentil, there is a need to develop extra short duration varieties for
rice-based systems for South Asia, drought and heat tolerant varieties with multiple
disease resistance for all the regions, and herbicide-tolerant and machine
harvestable varieties for West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. This requires
a comprehensive research for developing strategy involving both the conventional
and genomics tool.