Behaviour of plant pathogens for crops under stress during the determination of physiological, biochemical, and molecular approaches for salt stress tolerance

Abstract

Agricultural technology is the only way to meet the nutritional needs of the world's population. In the last century, crop production has significantly increased and has reached its plateau, coincident with the increase in world population. However, a large percentage of the human population still does not have enough food, therefore many are underfed and face malnourishment. The world population will continue to grow along with poverty, environmental health concerns, issues surrounding the availability of clean water sources, etc. By the middle of this century it may reach 10 billion. Therefore, scientists need to try to keep the relationship between crop production and population on an upward slope. To fully understand trends and to determine increases in crop production, many marginal areas need to be included into agricultural lands. If environmental pollution, drought, salinity, disease, and insect problems, as well as the use of irrigation water of marginal quality, are taken into account along with newly added low fertile agricultural lands, many crop plants, for a major part of their growth periods, are grown under adverse conditions. Therefore, now and in the future, scientists have to find physiological, biochemical, and molecular approaches to overcome negative production issues. However, the behaviour and characteristics of plant pathogens have also changed. In this chapter, recent developments in agriculture regarding the production of crops under stress conditions and the behaviour of plant pathogens are evaluated and discussed.