Description
Drought remains the biggest single threat from climate change to the production of key cereal crops, such as wheat and barley. Cereals also respond in complex ways to drought stress, making improved drought tolerance a challenging trait to achieve. With many cereals recognised as staple food crops due to their nutritional value, more research is required into improving drought tolerance as a means of ensuring the future food security of millions.
Developing drought-resistant cereals reviews the wealth of research which addresses how to overcome this challenge in order to mitigate climate change effects in cereal production. This collection details our understanding of the mechanisms of drought tolerance, as well as the development of techniques for improving resistance, including phenotyping, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and genome editing.
Key features
- Provides a comprehensive overview of the effect of drought on cereal crop yield and yield stability
- Explores recent developments in techniques for improving drought resistance, such as nested association mapping (NAM) and phenotyping
- Assesses the role of physiological traits (e.g. root characteristics, canopy architecture) on cereals response to drought stress
What others are saying...
"This new book titled Developing drought resistant cereals edited by Professor Tuberosa will be an important resource for scientists worldwide, especially with climate change increasing the frequency of drought conditions. Professor Tuberosa and the contributing authors are among the leading authorities in the cutting-edge science of crop improvement for drought tolerance. I look forward to using this important resource in my research program."
Professor Mark Sorrells, Cornell University, USA
Table of contents
Part 1 Understanding mechanisms of drought tolerance
1.Physiological traits affecting water use and water use efficiency in cereals in response to drought stress: Thomas Sinclair, North Carolina State University, USA;
2.The role of growth regulators in regulating tolerance to drought stress in cereals: Bill Davies, University of Lancaster, UK;
3.The role of drought stress-induced proteins in regulating drought resistance in cereals: John Cushman, University of Nevada-Reno, USA;
Part 2 Techniques for improving resistance
4.Identifying and exploiting drought tolerance traits in wild cereals, varieties and landraces: Zvi Peleg, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel;
5.Advances in phenotyping to identify drought-resistance traits in cereal roots: Jack Christopher, University of Queensland, Australia;
6.Advanced genetic techniques to identify and evaluate drought-adaptive loci in cereals: Roberto Tuberosa, University of Bologna, Italy;
7.Identifying and exploiting genes related to root system architecture in improving drought resistance in cereals: Eric Ober, NIAB, UK;
8.Identifying and exploiting photosynthetic genes in improving drought resistance in cereals: Ruilian Jing, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China;
9.Genomic selection, genome editing and genetic engineering for drought resistance in cereals: Rodomiro Ortiz, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden;
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