1Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263 145, Uttarakhand, India
2Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141 004, Punjab, India
3ICAR-NRC on Litchi, Muzaffarpur-842 002, Bihar, India
Plants in nature may be exposed, during their ontogeny, to a wide variety of favourable or disadvantageous abiotic factors. Stress is generally understood as the reaction of a biological system to extreme environmental factors that, depending on their intensity and duration, may cause significant changes in the system. To maintain its functional and structural integrity, a plant has to be resistant towards unfavourable factors. Environmental stresses represent the factors which most limit agricultural productivity worldwide. Stresses associated with temperature, salinity and drought, single or in combination are likely to enhance the severity of problems to which plants will be exposed in the coming decades. For every 10° increase in temperature, the water requirement by a crop would increase by 50%. Plant responses to abiotic stresses are dynamic and complex; they are both elastic (reversible) and plastic (irreversible). Due to the effect of various abiotic stresses the food productivity is decreasing and to minimize these losses is a major concern for all nations to cope with the increasing food. In response to these stresses, various approaches are being used which can mitigate the effect of stress and lead to the adjustment of the cellular milieu and plant tolerance. These approaches are valuable methods, especially as long-term adaptive solutions to climate change. Both crop architecture and physiology may be genetically altered to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
Climate change, mitigation, plant growth, stress, temperature
