The New Insights of Abiotic Stress in Agriculture

Abstract

Abiotic stresses are the prime limiting factors for agricultural production and productivity. Crop plants need to muddle through adverse external pressure fashioned by environmental and edaphic conditions/abiotic stresses with their intrinsic biological mechanisms, failing which their growth, development, and productivity suffer adversely. Dominant abiotic stresses comprise drought, high/low temperature, soil salinity, light intensity, submergence, hypoxic conditions and nutrient starvation. Approximately 64% of the global land area is affected with water deficit (Drought), 13% with flood (anoxia), 6% with soil salinity, 9% with mineral deficiency, 15% with acidic soils and 57% with soil acidity. Abiotic stresses adversely affect growth, development, and significantly limit the global agricultural productivity through impairing cellular physiology/biochemistry via elevating reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. The enhanced production of ROSs during stress can pose a threat to cells but it is also thought that elevated ROSs act as signals for the activation of stress-response and defense pathways. The product of these defense pathways are bioactive compounds (also known as secondary metabolites), which leads to the plant defense mechanism against the osmotic stress occurred and neutralize these ROSs and prevent the disruptions in plants cellular physiology/biochemistry. These secondary metabolites are divided in many groups like phenols, flavonoids, alkaloids, steroids, terpens, wax, gum, tannins, suberin etc. This is the one aspect to see the abiotic stresses in agriculture.