Approaches to Plant Stress and Their Management

Plant stresses are serious threats to the sustainability of crop yields accounting for more crop productivity losses than any other factor in rainfed agriculture. Post-harvest losses mean surplus crops do not reach market, affecting the livelihoods of farming families, and too often these families are left with no other option than to eat contaminated stored food. These constraints impact the food security of these farming families as well as the communities and countries in which they live. This book is the demonstration of a clear synergistic effect of stresses, an effect that was unexpectedly as important as either stress applied alone. This book will add to our current knowledge of abiotic stress response in plants and will provide the groundwork necessary to build future strategies for crop enhancement. The fundamental principles that underpin all biotechnology are explained and a full range of examples  discussed to show how these principles are applied; from starting substrate to final product. It will be beneficial to both plant breeders and molecular biologists, because it combines the topics of physiology, tolerance genes, and breeding methods. When these topics are presented together, it is easy to compare all aspects of tolerance mechanisms and breeding methods for abiotic stresses. These comparisons are useful to understand which pathways or which genes are important for rendering more tolerance to a certain abiotic stress, and to bring forward new ideas for improving the tolerance. Features •Cover both plant biotic and abiotic stresses •Important factors in managing crops for water stress conditions •Substantially increase the sustainable productivity of smallholder farmers in developing countries •Genetic and biochemical approaches – if those approaches constitute a substantial improvement on current practices.

Dr. Rajarshi Kumar Gaur is presently working as Head and Associate Professor, Department of Science, Mody Institute of Technology and Science (Deemed University), Lakshmangarh, Sikar, Rajasthan, India. He has partially characterized three sugarcane viruses viz., sugarcane mosaic virus, sugarcane streak mosaic virus and sugarcane yellow luteovirus.He worked on development of marker-free transgenic plants against cucumber viruses. He has made significant contributions on sugarcane viruses and published 80 national/international papers and presented near about 45 papers in the national and international conferences.

Dr. Pradeep Sharma is working as Senior Scientist (Biotechnology) at Directorate of Wheat Research, Karnal, India. Dr. Sharma has made significant contribution in geminiviruses from South East Asia and published more than 80 national and international research papers, invited chapters, reviews and edited three books in biotechnology and geminivirology. He has studied the role of suppressors encoded by monopartite Tomato leaf curl Java and Ageratum yellow vein begomoviruses.Currently, he is working on functional genomics, small RNAs and bioinformatics of wheat.