Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants

Description

Crop plants are mostly affected by abiotic and biotic stresses; annually abiotic stresses cause more than 25% crop losses. Abiotic stresses, such as drought, extreme temperatures, heavy metal toxicity and high salinity etc, severely impair plant growth and productivity. In the present scenario of changing climate, reduced ground water table and increased un-productive lands for the production of crops have complicated the agrarian welfare worldwide. So there is an urgent need to establish ways and means to make an agrarian to be sustainable for his livelihood. ABA is an isoprenoid phytohormone, which regulates various physiological processes ranging from stomatal opening to protein storage and provides adaptation to many stresses like drought, salt, and cold stresses. Salinity is one of the major factors which reduces crop production worldwide. Plant responses to salinity are highly complex and involve a plethora of genes. Due to its multigenicity, it has been difficult to attain a complete understanding of how plants respond to salinity. Hope, this book will be of greater use for the students and researchers, particularly plant breeders and biotechnologists as well as the botanists, to understand the injury and tolerance mechanisms, and subsequently improvement of crop genotypes for abiotic stresses.