IT HAS taken more than 30 years, but the world’s first hybrid legume has at last arrived, promising to raise yields by as much as 40 per cent.
Legumes are a cheap and vital source of protein for millions of people around the world, especially in Africa and Asia, so high-yielding hybrids could have huge nutritional benefits. But cultivated legumes have always been self-pollinating making it difficult to create hybrids.
Now a hybrid variety of pigeon pea has been developed by Kulbhushan Saxena and colleagues at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Patancheru, Andhra…
