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Drought differs from other natural disasters in several respects, largely because of the complexity of a crop’s response to it and also because we have the least understanding of a crop’s inductive mechanism for addressing drought tolerance among all abiotic stressors. Overall, the growth and productivity of crops at a global level is now thought to be an issue that is more severe and arises more frequently due to climatic change-induced drought stress. Among the major crops, rice is a frontline staple cereal crop of the developing world and is critical to sustaining populations on a daily basis. Worldwide, studies have reported a reduction in rice productivity over the years as a consequence of drought. Plants are evolutionarily primed to withstand a substantial number of environmental cues by undergoing a wide range of changes at the molecular level, involving gene, protein and metabolite interactions to protect the growing plant. Currently, an in-depth, precise and systemic understanding of fundamental biological and cellular mechanisms activated by crop plants during stress is accomplished by an umbrella of -omics technologies, such as transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics. This combination of multi-omics approaches provides a comprehensive understanding of cellular dynamics during drought or other stress conditions in comparison to a single -omics approach. Thus a greater need to utilize information (big-omics data) from various molecular pathways to develop drought-resilient crop varieties for cultivation in ever-changing climatic conditions. This review article is focused on assembling current peer-reviewed published knowledge on the use of multi-omics approaches toward expediting the development of drought-tolerant rice plants for sustainable rice production and realizing global food security.
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Building climate-resilient crops: genetic, environmental, and technological strategies for heat and drought stress tolerance
Abstract Global crop production faces increasing threats from the rise in frequency, duration, and intensity of drought and heat stress events due to climate change. Most staple food crops, including wheat, rice, soybean, and corn that provide over half of the world’s caloric intake, are not well adapted to withstand heat or drought. Efforts to breed or engineer stress-tolerant crops have had limited success due to the complexity of tolerance mechanisms and the variability of agricultural environments. Effective solutions require a shift towards fundamental research that incorporates realistic agricultural settings and focuses on practical outcomes for farmers. This review explores the genetic and environmental factors affecting heat and drought tolerance in major crops, examines the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying these stress responses, and evaluates the limitations of current breeding programs and models. It also discusses emerging technologies and approaches that could enhance crop resilience, such as synthetic biology, advanced breeding techniques, and high-throughput phenotyping. Finally, this review emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary research and collaboration with stakeholders to translate fundamental research into practical agricultural solutions.
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- PAR ID:
- 10642043
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Experimental Botany
- Volume:
- 76
- Issue:
- 16
- ISSN:
- 0022-0957
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 4395-4413
- Size(s):
- p. 4395-4413
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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