Plant Resistance to Abiotic Stresses

Abstract

Extreme weather events are one of the biggest dangers posed by climate breakdown. As the temperatures increase, droughts and desertification will render whole regions inhospitable to agriculture. At the same time, other regions might suffer significant crop losses due to floods. Usually, regional food shortages can be covered by surpluses from elsewhere on the planet. However, the climate breakdown could trigger sustained food supply disruptions globally. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more stress-resilient crop alternatives by both breeding new varieties and promoting underutilized crop species (orphan crops). The articles in this special issue cover responses of staple crops and orphan crops to abiotic stresses relevant under the climate breakdown, such as heat, water, high salinity, nitrogen, and heavy metal stresses. This information will certainly complement a toolkit that can help inform, support, and influence the design of measures to deal with the climate crisis.

C2H2 Zinc Finger Proteins: Master Regulators of Abiotic Stress Responses in Plants

“…As environmental problems become more severe, abiotic stress factors such as high salinity, low temperature, and drought will increasingly limit plant growth and crop yields Costa and Farrant, 2019). During the long process of evolution, plants have evolved protective mechanisms in response to stress involving morphological, physiological, and molecular adaptations (Meng et al, 2018;Bernstein, 2019;Kumari et al, 2019).…”

Building Stress Resilience of Cereals under Future Climatic Scenarios: ‘The Case of Maize, Wheat, Rice and Sorghum’

“…While some of the constraints, for instance, extremely low temperatures, flooding and some specific pests and diseases usually exhibit regional importance, some of the stresses, of-note; drought (water scarcity), heat (extremely high temperatures) and some pests and diseases have global significance and require global Building Stress Resilience of Cereals under Future Climatic Scenarios: 'The Case of Maize… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96608 cooperation to reduce their impact. Climate change is the most critical environmental challenge currently facing humanity [40,41]. It has brought with it extremes of weather events such as extremely high temperatures, a shift in rainfall patterns, uneven and unpredictable rainfall and increased frequency of dry spells [9,40].…”

“…Climate change is the most critical environmental challenge currently facing humanity [40,41]. It has brought with it extremes of weather events such as extremely high temperatures, a shift in rainfall patterns, uneven and unpredictable rainfall and increased frequency of dry spells [9,40]. Because of these climatic factors, usually, food deficit on one region can be compensated by surpluses from another region.…”

“…Because of these climatic factors, usually, food deficit on one region can be compensated by surpluses from another region. However, if climate-induced droughts and temperature increases continue, whole regions will be rendered inhospitable to crop production resulting in global food deficits [40]. Climate change effects on crop production are not uniformly distributed across all regions.…”

“…Globally, the major abiotic stresses impacting cereal production are droughts (water scarcity) [12,40], extremely high temperatures (heat stress) [43], and poor soil fertility [4]. In the history of global crop production, drought has always been regarded as one of the major cause of poor crop yields [40,42]. Droughts can occur in virtually all climatic regions [44].…”