CRC Press Improvement of Plant Production in the Era of Climate Change (Footprints of Climate Variability on Plant Diversity)

Current trends in population growth suggest that global food production is unlikely to meet future demands under projected climate change scenarios unless the pace of plant improvement is accelerated. Plant production is facing many challenges due to changing environmental conditions and the growing demand for new plant-derived materials. These challenges come at a time when plant science is making significant progress in understanding the basic processes of plant growth and development. Major abiotic stresses like drought, heat, cold and salinity often cause a range of morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes affecting plant growth, development, and productivity; so sustainable food production poses a serious challenge to much of the world, particularly in emerging countries. This underscores the urgent need to find better ways to translate new advances in plant science into concrete successes in agricultural production. In order to overcome the negative effects of abiotic stress and to maintain food security in the face of these challenges, new, improved, and resilient plant varieties, contemporary breeding techniques, and a deep understanding of the mechanisms for offsetting harmful climate change are undoubtedly necessary. In this context, Improvement of Plant Production in the Era of Climate Change is a guide to the most advanced techniques that help in understanding plant response to abiotic stress, leading to new horizons and the strategy for the current translation studies application to overall solution to create a powerful production and crop improvement in such an adverse environment. FEATURES Provides a state-of-the-art description of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular-level understanding of abiotic stress in plants Courses taught in universities from basics to advanced level in field of plant physiology, molecular genetics, and bioinformatics will use this book Focuses on climatic extremes and their management for plant protection and production, which is great threat to future generation and food security Understanding of new techniques pointed out in this book will open the possibility of genetic engineering in crop plants with the concomitant improved stress tolerance Addressing factors that are threatening future food production and providing potential solutions to these factors Written by a diverse group of internationally famed scholars, this book adds new horizons in the field of abiotic stress tolerance