Abiotic Stresses and Their Management in Vegetable Crop Production

Abstract

The stress concept, first proposed by Hans Selye in 1936, has also been applied to plants to describe adverse and environmental restrictions. The notion of plant stress, differs significantly from that of animals and humans. Due to ever fluctuating climatic circumstances and variables, the crop-environment interaction in horticultural crops leading to losses in yields and quality of produce occurs and thus climate change with respect to horticulture industry is attracting more attention. Abiotic stress is the leading cause of crop yield loss globally, lowering average yields by more than half for most main crop plants. Abiotic stressors are highly correlated and connected, causing morphological, biochemical, physiological and molecular changes in vegetable crops, leading in a significant profit drop. Water stress is the most common abiotic stress that causes significant losses in vegetable production, especially because it is often coupled by additional stresses like as salt, high temperatures, and nutritional deficits. Increased CO2 and temperature in the atmosphere, variation in amounts of precipitation causing more frequent droughts and floods, widespread runoffresulting in soil nutrient leaching and a loss in fresh-water availability are all contributing factors. Efforts to mitigate various pressures should be focused both throughout the growing season and after harvest. Stress-tolerant cultivars are being developed using a variety of methods, including traditional breeding and transgenic technology. Instead of genetic engineering, using vegetable breeding procedures or directed breeding is one the best options to improve stress tolerance in vegetables. Besides, post-harvest treatments, application of growth regulators, antioxidants, germplasm and in vitro selection, and modified environment packaging with different plastics may all help to improve tolerance and hence increase the shelf and nutritive life of vegetables.