Genetic response of growth phases for abiotic environmental stress tolerance in cereal crop plants

Abstract

The yield potential and quality of main cereals crop plants including maize, wheat, rice and barley have improved through breeding and introduction of transgenic crop plants from last three decades. There has been intensive research for the improvement of resistance against biotic and abiotic environmental conditions to safe the potential of cereal crop plants. Among abiotic stresses drought and heat are two most important abiotic factors which caused major loss in yield and quality of crop plants. The heat stress leads towards drought due to loss of water from soil and plant surfaces, therefore drought and heat caused combined adverse effects on plant morphological, physiological and yield traits which leads to reduce crop plant potential. There has been always an interaction among the environmental conditions and crop plants to produce grain and restore productivity. The drought and heat stress caused changes at cellular level, molecular changes and gene expression changes in cereals at various vegetative and reproductive stages/phases of crop growth and development. A large number of genes have indentified in cereals which switch up-regulated and down-regulated during drought and heat stress conditions. However, there is a need to improve resistance in cereals at gene level to maintain potential of yield and quality under abiotic stress conditions like drought, heat, salinity, and cold.