With near-comprehensive coverage of new advances in crop breeding for drought and salinity stress tolerance, this timely work seeks to integrate the most recent findings about key biological determinants of plant stress tolerance with modern crop improvement strategies. This volume is unique because is provides exceptionally wide coverage of current knowledge and expertise being applied in drought and salt tolerance research.
The global population is projected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, and food and feed production will need to increase by 70%. Wheat, maize and sorghum are three key cereals which provide nutrition for the majority of the world's population. Their production is affected by various abiotic stresses which cause significant yield losses. The effects of climate change also increase the frequency and severity of such abiotic stresses. Molecular breeding technologies offer real hope for improving crop yields. Although significant progress has been made over the last few years, there is still a need to bridge the large gap between yields in the most favorable and most stressful conditions.
This volume will be the only existing single-authored book offering a science-based breeder’s manual directed at breeding for water-limited environments. Plant breeding is characterized by the need to integrate information from diverse disciplines towards the development and delivery of a product defines as a new cultivar. Conventional breeding draws information from disciplines such as genetics, plant physiology, plant pathology, entomology, food technology and statistics. Plant breeding for water-limited environments and the development of drought resistant crop cultivars is considered as one of the more difficult areas in plant breeding while at the same time it is becoming a very pressing issue. This volume is unique and timely in that it develops realistic solutions and protocols towards the breeding of drought resistant cultivars by integrating knowledge from environmental science, plant physiology, genetics and molecular biology.
As per the reports of FAO, the human population will rise to 9 billion by the end of 2050 and 70% of more food must be produced over the next three decades to feed the additional population. The breeding approaches for crop improvement programs are dependent on the availability and accessibility of genetic variation, either spontaneous or induced by the mutagens. Plant breeders, agronomists, and geneticists are under constant pressure to expand food production by employing innovative breeding strategies to enhance yield, adaptability, nutrition, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In conventional breeding approaches, introgression of genes in crop varieties is laborious and time-consuming. Nowadays, new innovative plant breeding techniques such as molecular breeding and plant biotechnology, supplement the traditional breeding approaches to achieve the desired goals of enhanced food production. With the advent of recent molecular tools like genomics, transgenics, molecular marker-assisted back-crossing, TILLING, Eco-TILLING, gene editing, CRISPR CAS, non-targeted protein abundant comparative proteomics, genome wide association studies have made possible mapping of important QTLs, insertion of transgenes, reduction of linkage drags, and manipulation of genome. In general, conventional and modern plant breeding approaches would be strategically ideal for developing new elite crop varieties to meet the feeding requirement of the increasing world population. This book highlights the latest progress in the field of plant breeding, and their applicability in crop improvement. The basic concept of this 2-volume work is to assess the use of modern breeding strategies in supplementing the conventional breeding toward the development of elite crop varieties, for obtaining desired goals of food production.
Plants under abiotic stress are those suffering from drought, extreme temperatures, flood and other natural—but non-living—factors. Abiotic stress is responsible for reduced yields in several major crops, and climate change is focusing research in this area. To minimize cellular damage cause by such stresses, plants have evolved complex, well-coordinated adaptive responses that operate at the transcriptional level. Understanding these processes is key to manipulating plant performance to withstand stress. This book deals with the role of gene silencing in the adaptation of plants to these stresses, and documents the molecular regulatory systems for the abiotic response.
The unique responses of plants to combined stresses have been observed at physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. This book provides an analysis of all three levels of change in various plants in response to different combinations of stresses. The text provides a general review of the combined stress paradigm, focuses on the impact of higher CO2 levels in combination with other stresses, examines drought stress in conjunction with other abiotic factors in different crop plants as well as the combination of biotic and abiotic factors, and discusses the impact of combined stresses in forest ecosystems. Written by experts in the field, Combined Stresses in Plants: Physiological, Molecular, and Biochemical Aspects is a valuable resource for scientists, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows alike working in plant stresses.
Agriculture has shaped our planet into the world we know, but its continued success is threatened by changing weather patterns. Climate change is a diverse, multifactorial phenomenon and the agronomic strategies we employ to combat its effects need to be case-specific, with significant regional differences. With two major sections, the first explaining the challenges posed by climate change and the second reviewing the current research avenues employed, this book combines detailed discussion of physiological plant responses with practical experience on crop stress management and breeding. Using a number of illustrative case studies, it discusses how the stresses resulting from climate change could be overcome by assessing, measuring and predicting environmental changes and stresses, and identifying opportunities for adapting to multifactorial change. A global effort to combine climate change science with policy is desperately needed. Climate change will continue to pose many challenges to agriculture in the future but by taking an integrative approach to predicting and adapting to change, this book will inspire researchers to turn those challenges into opportunities.
Presents the latest knowledge of improving the stress tolerance, yield, and quality of rice crops One of the most important cereal crops, rice provides food to more than half of the world population. Various abiotic stresses—currently impacting an estimated 60% of crop yields—are projected to increase in severity and frequency due to climate change. In light of the threat of global food grain insecurity, interest in molecular rice breeding has intensified in recent years. Progress has been made, but there remains an urgent need to develop stress-tolerant, bio-fortified rice varieties that provide consistent and high-quality yields under both stress and non-stress conditions. Molecular Breeding for Rice Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Nutritional Quality is the first book to provide comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of this critical topic, containing the physiological, biochemical, and molecular information required to develop effective engineering strategies for enhancing rice yield. Authoritative and in-depth chapters examine the molecular and genetic bases of abiotic stress tolerance, discuss yield and quality improvement of rice, and explore new approaches to better utilize natural resources through modern breeding. Topics Include rice adaptation to climate change, enriching rice yields under low phosphorus and light intensity, increasing iron, zinc, vitamin and antioxidant content, and improving tolerance to salinity, drought, heat, cold, submergence, heavy metals and Ultraviolet-B radiation. This important resource: Contains the latest scientific information on a wide range of topics central to molecular breeding for rice Provides timely coverage molecular breeding for improving abiotic stress tolerance, bioavailability of essential micronutrients, and crop productivity through biotechnological methods Features detailed chapters written by internationally-recognized experts in the field Discusses recent progress and future directions in molecular breeding strategies and research Molecular Breeding for Rice Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Nutritional Quality is required reading for rice researchers, agriculturists, and agribusiness professionals, and the ideal text for instructors and students in molecular plant breeding, abiotic stress tolerance, environmental science, and plant physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and biotechnology.
Environmental conditions and changes, irrespective of source, cause a variety of stresses, one of the most prevalent of which is salt stress. Excess amount of salt in the soil adversely affects plant growth and development, and impairs production. Nearly 20% of the world’s cultivated area and nearly half of the world’s irrigated lands are affected by salinity. Processes such as seed germination, seedling growth and vigour, vegetative growth, flowering and fruit set are adversely affected by high salt concentration, ultimately causing diminished economic yield and also quality of produce. Most plants cannot tolerate salt-stress. High salt concentrations decrease the osmotic potential of soil solution, creating a water stress in plants and severe ion toxicity. The interactions of salts with mineral nutrition may result in nutrient imbalances and deficiencies. The consequence of all these can ultimately lead to plant death as a result of growth arrest and molecular damage. To achieve salt-tolerance, the foremost task is either to prevent or alleviate the damage, or to re-establish homeostatic conditions in the new stressful environment. Barring a few exceptions, the conventional breeding techniques have been unsuccessful in transferring the salt-tolerance trait to the target species. A host of genes encoding different structural and regulatory proteins have been used over the past 5–6 years for the development of a range of abiotic stress-tolerant plants. It has been shown that using regulatory genes is a more effective approach for developing stress-tolerant plants. Thus, understanding the molecular basis will be helpful in developing selection strategies for improving salinity tolerance. This book will shed light on the effect of salt stress on plants development, proteomics, genomics, genetic engineering, and plant adaptations, among other topics. The book will cover around 25 chapters with contributors from all over the world.
