Plant Breeding for Abiotic Stress Tolerance: Mechanisms, Evaluation and Mitigation

Food production has frequently been limited by several abiotic stress conditions, including drought, salinity, high temperatures, and low temperatures. Extreme environmental conditions inflict significant financial losses that have been incurred by small farmers, nations, the global community, and producers of commodities like cereal, legumes, vegetables, fruit, oil and fiber crops. Furthermore, the consequences of current global climate change may exacerbate these damages and challenge food and nutritional security. Plant breeders and molecular biologists are under pressure to develop innovative technologies to develop new abiotic stress-tolerant crop varieties for sustainable crop production to circumvent severe impacts on food production and security. The use of molecular and biotechnological tools and transgenics integrated with traditional plant breeding would enhance crop improvement when facing abiotic stress. As a result, reducing these damages is a significant task for the scientific community, which must address several issues regarding current developments and scientific understanding in the field of plant breeding for abiotic stress tolerance to produce cultivars that are resistant to abiotic stress. The goal of sharing findings and information that directly advance societal progress is realized in this book. The book chapters outline some of the mechanisms, assessments methods, and strategies for mitigating the effects of abiotic stresses through plant breeding to produce abiotic stress-tolerant crop varieties. This would lead to sustainable food production rise, food security and socioeconomic status of people can be attained, people's quality of life can be enhanced, and global resources can be preserved and sustained. The book begins with introductory information on the fundamentals and the impact of abiotic stress on crop productivity and food security. It discusses methodologies and research advances in plant breeding strategies to achieve tolerance to abiotic stress sources including drought, salinity, high-temperature, and low-temperature. The chapters are arranged to describe fundamentals and an in-depth understanding of the molecular and biochemical mechanisms of plant responses to abiotic stress factors, evaluation methodologies for tolerance in plant breeding programs, and mitigation approaches for abiotic stress based on traditional breeding, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. The book addresses interdisciplinary novel research with a precise overview of the discussed topics. This book is a valuable source of contemporary knowledge for graduate students, research scholars, and scientists interested in modern plant breeding and agriculture; thus, guaranteeing the quick and simple distribution of knowledge across society.