With expertise in the Near East Fertile Crescent, ICARDA has long recognized the potential of lentil and is seeking ways to take advantage of its high nutritional value and low water use that makes it well adapted to cereal-based cropping in dry regions.
Under the CGIAR global mandate to breed lentils, ICARDA efforts focus on developing improved varieties with resistance to a particular biotic stress, improving the seed size, and shortening the crop duration to fit lentils into various cropping systems, such as rice-based systems in South Asia.
ICARDA is also rolling out drought- and heat-tolerant varieties with resistance against multiple diseases found in the dry regions of ICARDA's focus, as well as herbicide-tolerant and machine-harvestable varieties for the West Asia and North Africa region.
New lentil lines aligned to product lines can also be found in the ICARDA's International Nurseries.