Skip to main content
Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge4Policy (K4P)

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

Developing drought-smart, ready-to-grow future crops

  • Publication | 2022
Global Food and Nutrition Security

Breeding crop plants with increased yield potential and improved tolerance to stressful environments is critical for global food security. Drought stress (DS) adversely affects agricultural productivity worldwide and is expected to rise in the coming years. Therefore, it is vital to understand the physiological, biochemical, molecular, and ecological mechanisms associated with DS. This review examines recent advances in plant responses to DS to expand our understanding of DS-associated mechanisms. Suboptimal water sources adversely affect crop growth and yields through physical impairments, physiological disturbances, biochemical modifications, and molecular adjustments. To control the devastating effect of DS in crop plants, it is important to understand its consequences, mechanisms, and the agronomic and genetic basis of DS for sustainable production. In addition to plant responses, we highlight several mitigation options such as omics approaches, transgenics breeding, genome editing, and biochemical to mechanical methods (foliar treatments, seed priming, and conventional agronomic practices). Further, we have also presented the scope of conventional and speed breeding platforms in helping to develop the drought-smart future crops. In short, we recommend incorporating several approaches, such as multi-omics, genome editing, speed breeding, and traditional mechanical strategies, to develop drought-smart cultivars to achieve the ‘zero hunger’ goal.

Resources
More information and links
Authors
Ali Raza, Muhammad Salman Mubarik, Rahat Sharif, Madiha Habib, Warda Jabeen, Chong Zhang, Hua Chen, Zhong-Hua Chen, Kadambot H. M. Siddique, Weijian Zhuang, Rajeev K. Varshney
Publisher
Wiley
Geographic coverageGlobal
Available from

11 Sep 2023

Knowledge service | MetadataGlobal Food and Nutrition Security | Research and Innovation | Drought resistant
Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET)crop productionCrop yieldfood securityplant breeding
Related reading
PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES | 27 Aug 2026
STING (Science and Technology for Pollinating Insects)
The Science and Technology for PollinatING Insects (STING) project is a collaboration of the Directorate-General for Environment and the Joint Research Centre (JRC), initiated in 2018.
More
Privacy statements, terms and conditions.
You will be directed to the EU Login website where you can login/register as a user. Once connected, your credentials (First name, last name, username, email) will be registered in Knowledge4policy as part of your profile, which will allow you to get involved in all Knowledge4policy communities (help is available).
You are leaving EUROPA

You are about to navigate to an external website. Please note that we are not responsible for its content.