Speeding crop resilience: Accelerated breeding strategies for pulse crops

Abstract

Pulses, including chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.), field pea (Pisum sativum L.), mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Huth), are major sources of plant protein, dietary fibre and essential micronutrients, for over one billion people worldwide. However, conventional breeding typically requires 7–12 years to develop improved cultivars, limiting the ability to respond to climate change, emerging biotic and abiotic stresses and increasing food demand. Accelerated breeding (AB) integrates innovative approaches such as speed breeding (SB), rapid generation advancement (RGA), marker-assisted breeding, genomic selection, doubled haploids (DH), high-throughput phenotyping, genome editing and artificial intelligence to shorten breeding cycles and enhance genetic gain. This review summarises recent advances in these technologies, their applications in major pulse crops and their potential to improve breeding efficiency, selection accuracy and cultivar development. It also highlights current challenges, including genotype-dependent transformation, limited phenotyping infrastructure and data integration, while discussing emerging opportunities in multi-omics, predictive breeding and AI-assisted decision support. Integrating these technologies into unified breeding pipelines will accelerate the development of climate-resilient, high-yielding and nutritionally superior pulse cultivars, thereby strengthening global food and nutritional security and promoting sustainable agriculture.