DISCIPLINE SYSTEM OF ALFALFA BIOLOGY: FROM MULTIOMICS TO BIOLOGICAL BREEDING

Highlights

● This review systematically raises the subject concept of alfalfa biology.

● The discipline of alfalfa biology has been divided into six major sections.

● The recent advances from the perspective of discipline system have been reviewed.

Abstract

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is the main leguminous forage crop with great ecologic and economic value. The research of alfalfa in various fields has exploded, but has not been included in a systematic framework. This paper summarizes the status of global alfalfa research over the past 10 years, raise the subject concept of alfalfa biology, and review the recent advances from the perspective of discipline system as germplasm resources, multiomics and biotechnology, environmental biology, symbiotic nitrogen fixation, biological breeding and cultivation. This paper proposes the key unsolved scientific and technical issues in alfalfa biology, and hope to appeal the research interest of more plant scientists and to promote the development of alfalfa industry.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

alfalfa / discipline system / forage biology / lucerne / Medicago sativa

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by National Forestry and Grassland Administration Soft Science Program (2021131008). The author thanks Prof. Jiangli Dong (China Agricultural University) and Dr. Qinyi Ye (China Agricultural University) for compilation and proofreading of the manuscript and relevant references.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Tao Wang declares that he has no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by the author.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2022. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)