Managing abiotic stresses in wheat

Abstract

Wheat, a major staple crop of the world as well as of India, provides food and nutritional security to millions of the global populace. While the rate of genetic gain in productivity during the recent years has not been as impressive as in the past, the cultivars under development are being tailored to meet the demand for higher production together with the challenges imposed by several abiotic stresses such as high temperature, restricted access to irrigation water, drought, salinity/alkalinity, waterlogging, mineral deficiency, crop lodging and preharvest sprouting. Since the conventional approaches being practiced for wheat improvement will not be sufficient to achieve the productivity targets, it is essential to integrate the modern approaches leveraged by advances in phenomics, molecular biology, functional genomics, etc. Furthermore, stress mitigation options particularly through agronomic interventions are also essential to stabilize the productivity in wheat. Recent efforts being attempted in this direction have been highlighted in this article.