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Wild Lens taxa are a reservoir of useful rare genes/alleles for widening the genetic base and synthesis of a new gene pool of lentil. To maximize and sustain lentil production, new gene sources are needed to be identified and incorporated into cultivated background. This needs a comprehensive approach to accumulate favourable alleles from distantly related germplasm for widening of the cultivated gene pool and would be the most appropriate strategy to solve the various problems associated with stressed crop production and plateaued yields. Furthermore, expansion of deeper understanding of lentil genomics along with extensive research undertaken in other crop species can provide suitable guidelines to cover the distribution of Lens genus and component gene pools for further remarkable progress in lentil genetic improvement. This review aims at the genus Lens distribution and gene pools, crop germplasm conserved in ex‐situ and in‐situ collection, wild species characterization and evaluation for useful traits of interest to solve production‐related problems, highlight useful gene sources present in different gene pools and the progress achieved for widening the genetic base of cultivated varieties of lentil through wide hybridization and exploring lentil genomics.

The present investigation was undertaken to study the genetic variability, diversity through cluster analysis and correlation among yield attributing traits. The experimental material is comprised of 63 diverse germplasm accessions including three check varieties were evaluated in augmented design during Rabi 2015-16 at IIPR, Kanpur. In this study, totally nine traits, namely, days to fifty per cent flowering (DF), days to maturity (DM), plant height (PH), number of branches per plant (NBP), number of pods per plant (NPP), pod length (PL), seeds per pod (SPP), 100 seeds wt (g) (HSW) and seed yield per plant (g) (SYP) were recorded. The results exhibited that the analysis of variance noticed significant differences among the genotypes for all characters studied. The genetic variability parameter showed that phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were higher than those of genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) for all the traits studied. Higher GCV coupled with heritability and genetic advance as % mean was recorded for PH, NPP, HSW and SYP. Likewise, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as % mean was recorded in DF, PH, NPP, PL, HSW and SYP. Trait association study revealed that the seed yield per plant exhibited significant positive correlation with NBP, NPP, NSP and HSW. In the same pattern, Euclidian clustering analysis displays 63 genotypes were grouped to two major clusters. From this investigation, it was observed that all genotypes showed sufficient genetic variability for the traits studied. The genotype such as EC400414, EC400398, ET8415 and EC540173 were superior to check varieties in terms of morphological and other agronomic traits. These genotypes could be utilized in breeding programme for improvement of specific traits.

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