Innovations in Growing Vegetables under Stress

Vegetable crops are highly sensitive to climatic changes, hence fluctuation in climatic parameters can affect crop at any phase of its growth, flowering and yield. Major limiting factors affecting vegetable productivity are various biotic and abiotic stresses like insect pests, diseases, increasing temperatures, drought, flood, salinity, acidity and alkalinity. Climate change also influence pest and disease occurrences, host-pathogen interactions, distribution and ecology of insects, time of appearance, migration to new places and their overwintering capacity, thereby causing major setback to vegetable production. To mitigate the adverse impact of various stresses on productivity and quality of vegetable crops, there is a need to develop novel adaptation strategies such as breeding hybrids resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses, grafting to combat soil borne pests, diseases and abiotic stresses and management techniques like drip irrigation, mulching, fertigation, use of hydrophilic substances like hydrogel. Grafting increases the tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses in vegetables. Breeding for the development of biotic and abiotic stresses resistant cultivars is an environmentally safe method to overcome both biotic and abiotic stress and a viable solution to the indiscriminate use of pesticides for controlling diseases and insect-pests which is hazardous to the health and environment. Drip irrigation highly controls the location, quantity, and timing of water, increases the water use efficiency (50–70%) and improved disease control due to improved root zone oxygenation. Fertigation ensures better fertilizer use efficiency (40–60%) due to reduction in loss due to leaching. Plastic mulches are effective in improving the microclimate around the plant by modifying the absorptivity and reflectivity of the soil around the plant and reducing moisture loss, weeds, pests, leaching of nutrients, soil compaction. High stress experienced by vegetables grown under open field condition against extreme environmental stresses such as high solar radiation, rainfall, surface wind, weed competition, major pests and diseases can be overcome by growing vegetables under protected cultivation. Hydrogels saves the irrigation water, improves physico-chemical and biological properties of the soil and are eco-friendly.