Plant Breeding Strategies for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Cereals
Authors: Raina, A., Laskar, R.A., Wani, M.R. and Khan, S.
Pages: 151-177
DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-0140-9_8
Abstract:By the year 2050, the global human population is predicted to increase by 2.5 billion reaching 9.6 billion people. To feed the world’s 9.6 billion people, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global food production must increase by 70%. Moreover, the productivity of major food crops is affected by environment induced abiotic stressors that further expand the food demandsupply gap. Among the food crops cereals are most important in ensuring food security, yet they are also the most vulnerable to abiotic stresses. Due to various abiotic stressors, cereal productivity is decreasing; thus, mitigating these yield losses is critical for all nations to satisfy rising food demands. Besides abiotic stressors, ongoing climate change are also posing severe obstacles to obtaining the required agricultural production levels to meet the expanding food demands. Among the abiotic stresses drought, temperature and soil salinity are the most severe, resulting in massive crop yield losses. Therefore, tolerance to abiotic stresses has typically been a long-term goal for plant breeders. In this chapter, the consequences of abiotic stresses, mechanism of abiotic stress tolerance and the role of various breeding strategies in developing abiotic stresstolerant cultivars have been discussed.
Source: Scopus