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Sustainable food production is vital to ensure food and nutritional security to growing human population. Recently, there has been a shift in agricultural production system, crop production is not only considering yield as primary interest to produce higher number of calories for reducing hunger, but also more nutrient-rich food to reduce malnutrition or “hidden hunger”. Micronutrient malnutrition is a continuing and serious public health problem in many countries, various Interventions to alleviate this problem have been implemented. Biofortification, the process of breeding nutrients into food crops, provides a comparatively cost effective, sustainable, and long-term means of delivering more micronutrients. Legumes have higher protein content than most plant foods approximately twice than cereals and are rich in the key micronutrients folate, niacin, thiamine, calcium, iron and zinc. This book summarizes the biofortification of legumes. Detailed information through contributed chapters shed light on legumes research relevant to human health, with key topics that include genomic and genetic resources for food security, conventional and modern breeding approaches for improving nutrition, agronomic traits and biotechnological interventions.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of medicinal plants and their interaction with abiotic stress in terms of morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular variations, and explains the adaptation and tolerance mechanisms involved. It presents various mechanisms that become operative in medicinal plants to combat stressful situations. The book discusses the secondary metabolites and/or bioactive compounds produced in medicinal plants under abiotic stress conditions, and the use of biostimulants and/or phytoprotectants to alleviate the adverse effects of abiotic stresses on medicinal plants. Additionally, it is likely to address opportunities and challenges in molecular and omics studies of medicinal plants under abiotic stress conditions. Overall, the chapters are developed by eminent subject experts with due care and clarity and cover an up-to-date literature review with relevant illustrations. The book would cater to the need of graduate and post-graduate students, researchers as well as scientists, and may attract the attention of pharmaceutical companies/industrialists and health policymakers.

Sorghum is the most important cereal crop grown in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) of Africa, Asia, Australia and Americas for food, feed, fodder and fuel. It is the fifth most important cereal crop globally after rice, wheat, maize and barley, and plays a major role in global food security. Sorghum is consumed in different forms for various end-uses. Its grain is mostly used directly for food purposes. After the release of the proceedings of two international symposia in the form of books “Sorghum in Seventies” and “Sorghum in Eighties”, global sorghum research and development have not been documented at one place. Of course, few books on sorghum have been released that focus on specific issues/research areas, but comprehensive review of all aspects of recent development in different areas of sorghum science has not been compiled in the form a single book. This book is intended to fill in a void to bridge the gap by documenting all aspects of recent research and development in sorghum encompassing all the progress made, milestones achieved across globe in genetic diversity assessment, crop improvement and production, strategies for high yield, biotic and abiotic stress resistance, grain and stover quality aspects, storage, nutrition, health and industrial applications, biotechnological applications to increase production, including regional and global policy perspectives and developmental needs. This book will be an institutional effort to compile all the latest information generated in research and development in sorghum across the globe at one place.

This book comprehensively introduces all aspects of the physiology, stress responses and tolerance to abiotic stresses of the Fabaceae plants. Different plant families have been providing food, fodder, fuel, medicine and other basic needs for the human and animal since the ancient time. Among the plant families Fabaceae have special importance for their agri-horticultural importance and multifarious uses apart from the basic needs. Interest in the response of Fabaceae plants toward abiotic stresses is growing considering the economic importance and the special adaptive mechanisms. Recent advances and developments in molecular and biotechnological tools has contributed to ease and wider this mission. This book provides up-to-date findings that will be of greater use for the students and researchers, particularly Plant Physiologists, Environmental Scientists, Biotechnologists, Botanists, Food Scientists and Agronomists, to get the information on the recent advances on this plant family in regard to physiology and stress tolerance.

This book sheds new light on ways to alleviate biotic and abiotic stress in plants, using signaling molecules of plant growth promotory rhizobacteria. Further, it elaborates on the different types of stress and strategies used by plants under various stress conditions. The respective sections describe the importance of the microbiome for the overall health of plants and how exploring plant-microbe communication and signaling pathways could offer a promising avenue for future research. The book also discusses how rhizobacteria could be exploited in stress alleviation and sustainable agriculture, and addresses omics strategies for stress response and mitigation. Thanks to clearly annotated references, the book also supports and encourages readers to further explore the topics discussed.

Under ongoing climate changes, natural and cultivated habitats of major crops are being continuously disturbed. Such conditions impose and exacerbate abiotic and biotic stressors. Drought, salinity, flood, cold, heat, heavy metals, metalloids, oxidants, irradiation, etc. are important abiotic stressors, while diseases and infections caused by plant pathogens, such as fungal agents, bacteria and viruses, are major biotic stresses. In many instances, stresses have become the major limiting factor for agricultural productivity and exert detrimental role on growth and yield of the crops. To help feed an ever increasing world population and to ensure global food security, concerted efforts from scientists and researchers have identified strategies to manage and mitigate the impacts of climate-induced stresses. This book, summarizing their findings, is aimed at crop improvement beyond such kind of barriers, by agronomic practices (genetics, breeding, phenotyping, etc.) and biotechnological applications, including molecular markers, QTL mapping, genetic engineering, transgenesis, tissue culture, various'omics'technologies and gene editing. It will cover a wide range of topics under environmental challenges, agronomy and agriculture processes, and biotechnological approaches. Additionally, fundamental mechanisms and applied information on stress responses and tolerance will be discussed. This book highlights problems and offers proper solutions for crop stress management with recent information and up-to-date citations. We believe this book is suitable for scientists, researchers and students working in the fields of agriculture, plant science, environmental biology and biotechnology.

Human population is escalating at an enormous pace and is estimated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. As a result, there will be an increase in demand for agricultural production by 60–110% between the years 2005 and 2050 at the global level; the number will be even more drastic in the developing world. Pathogens, animals, and weeds are altogether responsible for between 20 to 40% of global agricultural productivity decrease. As such, managing disease development in plants continues to be a major strategy to ensure adequate food supply for the world. Accordingly, both the public and private sectors are moving to harness the tools and paradigms that promise resistance against pests and diseases. While the next generation of disease resistance research is progressing, maximum disease resistance traits are expected to be polygenic in nature and controlled by selective genes positioned at putative quantitative trait loci (QTLs). It has also been realized that sources of resistance are generally found in wild relatives or cultivars of lesser agronomic significance. However, introgression of disease resistance traits into commercial crop varieties typically involves many generations of backcrossing to transmit a promising genotype. Molecular marker-assisted breeding (MAB) has been found to facilitate the pre-selection of traits even prior to their expression. To date, researchers have utilized disease resistance genes (R-genes) in different crops including cereals, pulses, and oilseeds and other economically important plants, to improve productivity. Interestingly, comparison of different R genes that empower plants to resist an array of pathogens has led to the realization that the proteins encoded by these genes have numerous features in common. The above observation therefore suggests that plants may have co-evolved signal transduction pathways to adopt resistance against a wide range of divergent pathogens. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms necessary for pathogen identification and a thorough dissection of the cellular responses to biotic stresses will certainly open new vistas for sustainable crop disease management. This book summarizes the recent advances in molecular and genetic techniques that have been successfully applied to impart disease resistance for plants and crops. It integrates the contributions from plant scientists targeting disease resistance mechanisms using molecular, genetic, and genomic approaches. This collection therefore serves as a reference source for scientists, academicians and post graduate students interested in or are actively engaged in dissecting disease resistance in plants using advanced genetic tools.

This book presents recent advances in global wheat crop research, including the effects of abiotic stresses like high and low temperatures, drought, hypoxia, salinity, heavy metals, nutrient deficiency, and toxicity on wheat production. It also highlights various approaches to alleviate the damaging effects of abiotic stress on wheat as well as advanced approaches to develop abiotic-stress-tolerant wheat crops. Wheat is probably one of the world's most important cereals; it is a staple food in more than 40 countries, and because of its adaptability is cultivated in almost every region. Global wheat production has more than doubled in the last 50 years due to higher yields. However, despite their high yield potential, modern wheat cultivars are often subject to crop loss due to the abiotic stresses. As such, plant breeders have long aimed to improvetolerance in order to maintain yield. Written by 85 experts, and offering the latest insights into wheat responses and tolerance to various abiotic stresses, it is a valuable tool for agronomists, plant breeders, plant physiologists and students in the field of plant science and agriculture. It is the first book to comprehensively cover past and current abiotic stress problems and tolerance mechanisms.

Plants have to manage a series of environmental stresses throughout their entire lifespan. Among these, abiotic stress is the most detrimental; one that is responsible for nearly 50% of crop yield reduction and appears to be a potential threat to global food security in coming decades. Plant growth and development reduces drastically due to adverse effects of abiotic stresses. It has been estimated that crop can exhibit only 30% of their genetic potentiality under abiotic stress condition. So, this is a fundamental need to understand the stress responses to facilitate breeders to develop stress resistant and stress tolerant cultivars along with good management practices to withstand abiotic stresses. Also, a holistic approach to understanding the molecular and biochemical interactions of plants is important to implement the knowledge of resistance mechanisms under abiotic stresses. Agronomic practices like selecting cultivars that is tolerant to wide range of climatic condition, planting date, irrigation scheduling, fertilizer management could be some of the effective short-term adaptive tools to fight against abiotic stresses. In addition, “system biology” and “omics approaches” in recent studies offer a long-term opportunity at the molecular level in dealing with abiotic stresses. The genetic approach, for example, selection and identification of major conditioning genes by linkage mapping and quantitative trait loci (QTL), production of mutant genes and transgenic introduction of novel genes, has imparted some tolerant characteristics in crop varieties from their wild ancestors. Recently research has revealed the interactions between micro-RNAs (miRNAs) and plant stress responses exposed to salinity, freezing stress and dehydration. Accordingly transgenic approaches to generate stress-tolerant plant are one of the most interesting researches to date.This book presents the recent development of agronomic and molecular approaches in conferring plant abiotic stress tolerance in an organized way. The present volume will be of great interest among research students and teaching community, and can also be used as reference material by professional researchers.

The book discusses the complex interactions between plants and their associated microbial communities. It also elucidates the ways in which these microbiomes are connected with the plant system, and how they affect plant health. The different chapters describe how microbiomes affect plants with regard to immunity, disease conditions, stress management and productivity. In addition, the book describes how an ‘additional plant genome'functions as a whole organ system of the host, and how it presents both challenges and opportunities for the plant system. Moreover, the book includes a dedicated section on using omics tools to understand these interactions, and on exploiting them to their full potential.

This book puts an updated account on functional aspects of multiphasic microbial interactions within and between plants and their ecosystem. Multipronged interaction in the soil microbial communities with the plants constitute a relay of mechanisms that make profound changes in plant and its micro-environment in the rhizopshere at physiological, biochemical and molecular levels. In agro-ecological perspectives, such interactions are known to recycle nutrients and regulate signalling molecules, phytohormones and other small molecules that help plant growth and development. Such aspects are described deeply in this book taking examples from various crop plants and microbial systems. Authors described the most advantageous prospects of plant-microbe interaction in terms of inoculation of beneficial microorganisms (microbial inoculants) with the plants in which microbes proliferate in the root rhizosphere system and benefit plants'with definite functions like fixation of nitrogen, solubilization and mobilization of P, K, Zn and production of phytohormones. The subject of this book and the content presented herein has great relevance to the agro-ecological sustainability of crop plants with the help of microbial interactions. The chapters presented focus on defining and assessing the impact of beneficial microbial interactions on different soils, crops and abiotic conditions. This volume entails about exploiting beneficial microbial interactions to help plants under abiotic conditions, microbe-mediated induced systemic tolerance, role of mycorrhizal interactions in improving plant tolerance against stresses, PGPR as nutrient mobilizers, phytostimulants, antagonists and biocontrol agents, plant interactions with Trichoderma and other bioagents for sustainable intensification in agriculture, cyanobacteria as PGPRs, plant microbiome for crop management and phytoremediation and rhizoremediation using microbial communities. The overall content entrust advanced knowledge and applicability of diversified biotechnological, techno-commercial and agro-ecological aspects of microbial interactions and inoculants as inputs, which upon inoculation with crop plants benefit them in multiple ways.

To address the environmental, socioeconomic, and geopolitical issues associated with increasing global human energy consumption, technologies for utilizing renewable carbon-free or carbon-neutral energy sources must be identified and developed. Among renewable sources, solar energy is quite promising as it alone is sufficient to meet global human demands well into the foreseeable future. However, it is diffuse and diurnal. Thus effective strategies must be developed for its capture, conversion and storage. In this context, photosynthesis provides a paradigm for large-scale deployment. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria and has evolved over 3 billion years. The process of photosynthesis currently produces more than 100 billion tons of dry biomass annually, which equates to a global energy storage rate of ~100 TW. Recently, detailed structural information on the natural photosynthetic systems has been acquired at the molecular level, providing a foundation for comprehensive functional studies of the photosynthetic process. Likewise, sophisticated spectroscopic techniques have revealed important mechanistic details. Such accomplishments have made it possible for scientists and engineers to construct artificial systems for solar energy transduction that are inspired by their biological counterparts. The book contains articles written by experts and world leaders in their respective fields and summarizes the exciting breakthroughs toward understanding the structures and mechanisms of the photosynthetic apparatus as well as efforts toward developing revolutionary new energy conversion technologies. The topics/chapters will be organized in terms of the natural sequence of events occurring in the process of photosynthesis, while keeping a higher-order organization of structure and mechanism as well as the notion that biology can inspire human technologies. For example, the topic of light harvesting, will be followed by charge separation at reaction centers, followed by charge stabilization, followed by chemical reactions, followed by protection mechanisms, followed by other more specialized topics and finally ending with artificial systems and looking forward. As shown in the table of contents (TOC), the book includes and integrates topics on the structures and mechanisms of photosynthesis, and provides relevant information on applications to bioenergy and solar energy transduction.