Soil acidity tolerance in cereals -basis and approach

Soil acidity poses a significant challenge to plant productivity due to a complex of several micronutrient toxicities and deficiencies, Aluminium toxicity and Phosphorus deficiency being the major players. Several breeding, molecular, genomic and transgenic approaches have been employed in recent years to understand and harness the genetic mechanisms involved in soil acidity response in major cereals. An overview of the approaches is presented here to highlight the current understanding of soil acidity tolerance mechanisms in cereals. Also, certain lacunae and future direction in this challenging area of research that may lead to enhanced crop productivity under acidic soils are discussed.