**6. Conclusion**

Legumes are very important food crops that supply good amounts of plant source protein to our meals. Postharvest losses are incurred if grain legumes are not properly handled, prepared, and stored. Some of the notable postharvest handling practices adopted to preserve and extend the shelf life of legumes include drying, pest control, and storage.

Pest control in harvested grains can be achieved through emerging technologies like irradiation, radio frequency ionization, infra-red, and microwave technology. Pest management can also be done through the age-long chemical means of fumigation as well as controlled atmosphere technology as an alternative.

The drying of grain legumes through the traditional means openly spreading in the sun yields poor drying results. Drying of grain legumes is better done through artificial means with hot air dryers or solar dryers of different sorts. Solar dryers have evolved greatly as a result of the need to reduce the level of greenhouse gases emitted by non-solar dryers, high fuel prices to run non-solar dryers, and the need for a renewable type of energy, unlike the non-solar dryers.

Storage of grain legumes for bulk commercial purposes is done in silos while hermetic bag storages are utilized for small-scale storage in other to achieve a fairly optimal storage condition for grain legumes.
