Advancing in orphan crops through innovative breeding methods and genomic approaches: Current research and future challenges

Orphan crops play an important role in global food and nutrition security, and may have the potential to contribute to sustainable food systems under stress conditions. Despite their huge importance for present and future agriculture, orphan crops have generally received little attention from the global scientific community. Due to this, they produce inferior yields in terms of both quantity and quality. Orphan crops are part of all food kinds including root and tuber crops, legumes, cereals, and vegetables as major crops. Orphan crops can provide essential nutrients to worldwide diets, help economic growth in the global poorest places, and strengthen the entire agri-food industry’s resistance against both abiotic and biotic challenges. Producer’s plant landraces are obtained and exchanged through a disorganized market system, and little scientific effort has been devoted to orphan crops. Breeding and investigation may be accelerated by using speed breeding technique that reduces plant production times, helping to meet ever-increasing needs. The present review highlights the ongoing efforts and future possibilities for accelerating the breeding of orphan crops, as well as divergent genomic approaches for deploying speed breeding in low-resource areas throughout the world.