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Water: the most important ‘molecular’ component of water stress tolerance research

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/7705/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/FP13149
10.1071/FP13149
 
Title Water: the most important ‘molecular’ component of water
stress tolerance research
 
Creator Vadez, V
Kholova, J
Zaman-Allah, M
Nouhoun BelkoA,, N
 
Subject Genetics and Genomics
 
Description Water deficit is the main yield-limiting factor across the Asian and African semiarid tropics and a basic
consideration when developing crop cultivars for water-limited conditions is to ensure that crop water demand matches
season water supply. Conventional breeding has contributed to the development of varieties that are better adapted to
water stress, such as early maturing cultivars that match water supply and demand and then escape terminal water stress.
However, an optimisation of this match is possible. Also, further progress in breeding varieties that cope with water stress is
hampered by the typically large genotype environment interactions in most field studies. Therefore, a more comprehensive
approach is required to revitalise the development of materials that are adapted to water stress. In the past two decades,
transgenic and candidate gene approaches have been proposed for improving crop productivity under water stress, but
have had limited real success. The major drawback of these approaches has been their failure to consider realistic water
limitations and their link to yield when designing biotechnological experiments. Although the genes are many, the plant
traits contributing to crop adaptation to water limitation are few and revolve around the critical need to match water supply
and demand. We focus here on the genetic aspects of this, although we acknowledge that crop management options also
have a role to play. These traits are related in part to increased, better or more conservative uses of soil water. However, the
traits themselves are highly dynamic during crop development: they interact with each other and with the environment.
Hence, success in breeding cultivars that are more resilient under water stress requires an understanding of plant traits
affecting yield under water deficit as well as an understanding of their mutual and environmental interactions. Given that
the phenotypic evaluation of germplasm/breeding material is limited by the number of locations and years of testing, crop
simulation modelling then becomes a powerful tool for navigating the complexity of biological systems, for predicting the
effects on yield and for determining the probability of success of specific traits or trait combinations across water stress
scenarios.
 
Publisher CSIRO Publishing
 
Date 2013
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
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Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/7705/1/FPB_40_1310-1322_2013.pdf
Vadez, V and Kholova, J and Zaman-Allah, M and Nouhoun BelkoA,, N (2013) Water: the most important ‘molecular’ component of water stress tolerance research. Functional Plant Biology, 40 (12). pp. 1310-1322. ISSN 1445-4408