Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is one of the earliest domesticated food legumes after chickpea and pea in the world. It is been produced in many countries including China, Ethiopia, Egypt, northern Europe, the Mediterranean region, central Asia, East Asia, Latin America and as a minor crop in India. The crop is affected by many diseases and alternaria leaf blight (Alternaria spp.) is one of the seriousthreat to faba bean production. Twenty-five lines of faba bean were selected from three international nurseries and were evaluated at ICARDA-FLRP-Amlaha during 2016–2017 and 2017–2018, to identify resistant lines against alternaria blight disease. A wide range of variation to disease reaction was observed among faba bean genotypes. One faba bean line (S2011-134) found tolerant, six genotypes (S2011-116, FLIP15-139, FLIP15-156, FLIP15-159, FLIP15-164-S2 and FLIP15-169) were found moderately tolerant and 16 genotypes were found susceptible to alternaria blight. The faba bean genotypes showed resistance to the disease scoring (0–9) with high yield as compared to the checks, Giza and Gwalior local. The identified sources of resistance can be utilized in faba bean breeding programmes for the development of disease tolerant cultivars with high yield.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important food legume crop grown in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. In India, kabuli chickpea is grown in central India in ~0.5 million ha, predominantly under short winter (< 110 days). Efforts are underway to select promising genotypes at the Food Legume Research Platform (FLRP), Amlaha, located in intensive kabuli chickpea growing area of India.Sixty-four kabuli chickpea lines were evaluated for agronomic traits during 2017–2018 and 2018–2019 crop seasons at FLRP following simple 8 X 8 lattice design with two replications. The analysis of variance over two years revealed significant variation exists for days to flowering, plant height, maturity period, biomass, seed size and seed yield. It was observed that with similar maturity time (106 days), FLIP09-432C produced 2273 kg/ha, which out-yielded the popular variety in central India, JGK-3 by 15%. The breeding lines, FLIP09- 436C, FLIP09-171C, FLIP09-373C and FLIP09-247C were also found promising for earliness (104–110 days), and high yielding with the good yield ability (1003–2273 kg/ha). These promising genotypes for a short duration with good yield have been selected and can be used for various chickpea breeding programmes to develop high yielding varieties in central India.