Grass pea

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is a grown in fragile agro-ecosystems as it can withstand extreme drought, waterlogging, salinity, and heat with no major threats from diseases and insect pests in fields. Despite many benefits, grass pea is underutilized and underresearched because of three main reasons—presence of a plant toxin, nature of pollination, and large genome size. The presence of β-N-oxalyl-l-α,β diaminopropionic acid (β-ODAP), poses a serious challenge to its cultivation as it gained a reputation that its consumption can cause neurodegenerative disease in humans. However, the crop has recently received recognition as a health promoting functional as a healthy smart food in spite of the presence the of β-ODAP. Classical breeding schemes have successfully developed ~30 improved varieties that are grown in various agroecologies in different parts of the world. With emphasis on plant-based protein diets and adaptation to climate change, grass pea has gained importance as important legume crop in recent years. This has encouraged many research teams around the world to generate knowledge on various aspects of priority traits, their mechanisms, and how to use that knowledge in improving grass pea genetically. The renewed interest in grass pea is also due to emphasis on diversification of cereal-based cropping systems that are unsustainable in long run. Recent advances in efficient tools and techniques for genomics, phenomics, and breeding have led to overcome some of the technological issues in grass pea. The availability of the draft genome sequence has placed grass pea, at the threshold for the generation of abundant genomic resources for use in genomics enabled advancement. We review current status and prospects of grass pea and various breeding approaches to improve this crop for its integration in diverse and sustainable agri-food systems.