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Background: Climate change is expected to be a major constraint for chickpea as it increases the frequency of drought and temperature extremes. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of drought and heat stress conditions on chickpeas' physical, quality and bioactive traits, along with antioxidant activity of five chickpea genotypes in normal and late sowning conditions. Methods: Field trials were carried out at Institute of Industrial and Forage Crops. All the five genotypes were planted at two different sowing dates, one during the normal sowing period (February 28, 2019) and one off-season (April 1, 2019) in order to achieve dry-heat conditions during the chickpea's critical stages of off-season sowing. Result: Sowing period significantly affected cooking time and bioactive traits, resulted in decreased cooking time and increased bioactive traits values, in the later sowing period. Genotype's effects were significant for all the traits studied. Amorgos appeared to be a promising variety with high nutritive value as it showed the highest values in terms of bioactive traits and antioxidant activity in both sowing periods, combined with low cooking time and high protein content at the off-season sowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common bean is the most significant pulse in Mediterranean countries and high yield performance is required to become commercially successful. Seven common bean genotypes were evaluated for yield and stability along with their interrelationship with agronomical, physicochemical and quality characteristics. An analysis of variance was conducted to test main effects and interactions between plant traits and environments. Significant variation among genotypes occurred for seed yield and a strong positive correlation was observed between seed yield and pods m-2. High Genetic Coefficient of Variation (GCV) values combined with high heritability for traits as seed yield, cooking time, hydration capacity and protein content were recorded. The GGE biplot analysis indicated two cultivars as superior genotypes that combine high yield, stability, short cooking time and high protein content. Furthermore, a local population assessed as promising genetic material for the selection of elite lines with high yield and short cooking time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of organic agriculture has raised the demand for crop varieties well-adapted to organic farming systems. Most of the varieties presently cultivated in organic agriculture were developed from conventional breeding programmes. The objective of the present work was to study the adaptability to organic farming systems of lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) varieties developed from conventional breeding programmes. Twenty varieties were evaluated over five environments under organic and conventional farming systems from 2005 to 2007. Genotype×system interactions (GSI) for grain yield were significantly different in four out of the five environments and GSI explained 0·03–0·17 of the variance. Spearman's rank correlation index of the 20 varieties between the conventional and organic system ranged from 0·27 to 0·93 in the five environments. Direct selection of the top five varieties in organic systems resulted in significantly higher grain yields than indirect selection in one out of the five environments. However, among the top five varieties, the highest yielding varieties under conventional farming systems were not always the highest yielding varieties under organic farming systems. These results indicate that the demands of organic agriculture for yield performance could be only partially satisfied by varieties developed under conventional breeding programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]