Drought tolerance in maize

Abstract

Water-deficit stress caused by drought, soil salinity and low-temperatures, affects negatively plant growth and development and it is one of the major causes for crop yield reductions in farmed regions around the world. Indeed, limited availability of water resources for agronomical uses in many regions generates important problems in a context where it is essential to raise crop productivity to insure food needs of an increasing world population O. Development of crop varieties with less dependence on water and more tolerant to drought should contribute to ameliorate this problem. Genetic engineering seems to be a more rapid and efficient approach to improve stress tolerance than the traditional breeding and marker-assisted selection strategies. Due to the complexity of the molecular mechanisms of plant stress responses, research into this area together with the study of genetic modification of stress tolerant traits will provide the necessary tools for a successful application of genetic engineering (WANG et al., 2003).