Breeding Strategies for Drought Tolerance in Crop Plant, A View

Abstract

 Drought is one of the most severe abiotic stresses in many regions of the world, and it is one of the 
most urgent issues in the current climate scenario. Drought-tolerant varieties are in high demand, which appears 
to be a challenging task for plant breeders. However, difficulties are complicated by crop production challenges 
on genetic and physiological bases. Drought is one of the most major environmental factors affecting crop 
productivity and quality around the world. Drought mostly impacts crops that thrive in wetland conditions, 
which account for 80% of all farmed land in the world. Climate change raises the likelihood of increased 
drought in many regions of the world in the next decades, causing crop damage as a result of abnormal 
metabolism and perhaps reducing crop growth, crop death, or crop development death. Drought resistance is 
defined as the mechanism(s) that cause the crop to lose the least amount of yield in a drought environment 
compared to the highest yield in a constant-free of optimal environment. Drought stress reduces the size of the 
leaves, stem extension, and root proliferation inside the soil; it also disrupts plant water relations and reduces 
water-use efficiency, reducing the plant’s yielding ability. Therefore, breeding for drought resistance is a good 
approach, combining both conventional and molecular approaches to develop a drought resistant variety. Root 
morphology research, proline estimates, and leaf rolling are all factors to take into account. Breeding improved 
drought-tolerant cultivars may be more effective if selection is based on a comprehensive approach to testing. 
Water stress also affects the crop’s physiological activity by inhibiting photosynthesis and assimilates 
consumption in the growing leaves. Plant hormones play a key role in transducing the stress signal, with 
abscisic acid (ABA) being the most important among them. To alleviate suitable crop productivity under 
environmental stresses, scientists developed various breeding strategies, such as conventional breeding, which 
works for both self-pollinated and cross-pollinated crops and is used to develop or improve cultivars using a 
basic conservative tool for manipulating plant genomes within the natural genetic boundaries of species. 
Pedigree, recurrent selection, back-crossing, and mutation breeding are among the conventional breeding 
strategies used to generate cultivars that can withstand drought stress.