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Conventional Breeding and Advance Approaches to Mitigate Drought and Salt Stress in Crop Plants

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Salinity and Drought Tolerance in Plants

Abstract

Extreme environmental conditions are the key constraints in agricultural production and productivity. Environmental stresses due to salt and water play a cardinal role as they influence photosynthesis directly or indirectly, hence reducing the crop productivity significantly. Various molecular mechanisms play pivotal role in combating these stresses by the plants. Also, the extent of stress tolerance depends upon genetic makeup of the plant and its interactions with the external environment at different developmental stages. Comprehensive studies on drought and salt tolerance have helped in designing strategies to improve plant architecture through conventional and modern techniques, thereby enhancing crop yields. Conventional breeding tools have scope for successful transfer of stress tolerant genes only when there is presence of ample genetic variability for the same and no barrier to crossing. However, the genetic variability for drought and salt stress is very limited in the germplasm for most of the crops, and it is further hindered by reproductive barriers. Advance breeding techniques like marker-assisted selection, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, genetic engineering, genome editing, etc. have enormous potential to develop stress tolerant crop cultivars. The role of conventional as well as advance approaches in breeding for the development of drought and salt stress tolerant crop varieties and their future scope has been described in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana, India

    Minakshi Jattan, D. S. Phogat,  Ravika, Sandeep Kumar & Omender Sangwan

  2. Department of Biochemistry, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India

    Nisha Kumari & Babita Rani

  3. Department of Forestry, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India

    Sushil Kumari

  4. Department of Botany & Plant Physiology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India

    Anita Kumari

  5. Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Maharana Partap University of Agricultural & Technology, Udaipur, India

    Rukoo Chawla

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  1. Minakshi Jattan
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  2. Nisha Kumari
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  3. Babita Rani
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  4. D. S. Phogat
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  5. Sushil Kumari
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  6. Ravika
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  7. Anita Kumari
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  8. Sandeep Kumar
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  9. Omender Sangwan
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  10. Rukoo Chawla
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR – Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India

    Ashwani Kumar

  2. ICAR – Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Regional Centre, Karnal, Haryana, India

    Pooja Dhansu

  3. ICAR – Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India

    Anita Mann

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Jattan, M. et al. (2023). Conventional Breeding and Advance Approaches to Mitigate Drought and Salt Stress in Crop Plants. In: Kumar, A., Dhansu, P., Mann, A. (eds) Salinity and Drought Tolerance in Plants. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4669-3_7

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