title: Orphan legume crops enter the genomics era!
abstract: Many of the world's most important food legumes are grown in arid and semi-arid regions of Africa and Asia, where crop productivity is hampered by biotic and abiotic stresses. Until recently, these crops have also suffered from a dearth of genomic and molecular-genetic resources and thus were 'orphans' of the genome revolution. However, the community of legume researchers has begun a concerted effort to change this situation. The driving force is a series of international collaborations that benefit from recent advances in genome sequencing and genotyping technologies. The focus of these activities is the development of genome-scale data sets that can be used in high-throughput approaches to facilitate genomics-assisted breeding in these legumes.
authors.affiliation: International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru 502324, A.P., India. r.k.varshney@cgiar.org
authors.forename: Rajeev K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Varshney
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Close
authors.forename: Nagendra K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Hoisington
authors.forename: Douglas R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D018556:Crops, Agricultural / Q000235:genetics*; D007887:Fabaceae / Q000235:genetics*; D018745:Genome, Plant; D023281:Genomics; D005838:Genotype