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This book offers a thorough examination of how drought stress impacts various facets of a plant's physiology, ecology, and agricultural systems. It delves into the challenges posed by drought stress, a critical issue exacerbated by climate change and its impact on water availability. By employing a multidisciplinary methodology, the book endeavours to furnish a thorough comprehension of the intricate interplay between plants and their surroundings when faced with water scarcity. It proves to be an invaluable asset for scholars, students, policymakers, and experts who are keen on comprehending the intricate array of issues that drought stress poses. Moreover, it serves as a repository of effective strategies to tackle the consequences of drought stress in a world undergoing transformation. The book's multidisciplinary orientation guarantees a comprehensive exploration of the subject, encompassing the physiological, agricultural, and molecular reactions of plants.

This compendium presents comprehensive information on more than 25 important spice crops commercially grown in India and traded globally, apart from over 40 spices that have the potential to be popularized. In 70 chapters the book covers the achievements in research and development made in India for the past 75 years in various organizations including research institutes, agricultural universities and private sector laboratories. Spices are natural products of plant origin, used primarily for flavouring and seasoning or for adding pungency and flavour to foods and beverages. The flavour and fragrance of Indian spices had a magic spell on human culture since very ancient days. The importance of spices in Indian life and its contribution to the economy are substantial. India, as the world's leading producer of spices is also a significant stakeholder in spices export trade globally. Indian spices being sources of many high value compounds, are also gaining muchimportance for other diversified uses especially for their pharmaceutical and nutraceutical properties. A wide variety of 52 spices are grown in India including black pepper, chillies, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, garlic, onion, cumin, coriander, saffron and vanilla. This book complies a comprehensive, holistic review on the subject, written by the best experts in the field in India representing diverse agencies. This book is a single point reference book for all those involved in the research, study, teaching and use of spices in India and abroad.

The crop plants cater not only to our basic F5 (food, feed, fiber, fuel, and furniture) needs but also provide a number of nutraceuticals with potential nutritional, safety and therapeutic properties. Many crop plants provide an array of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidant-rich bioactive phytochemicals. Increasing incidences of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and HIV, and malnutrition necessitate global attention to health and nutrition security with equal emphasis to food security. This compendium compiles results of researches on biochemical, physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying biosynthesis of the health and nutrition related nutraceuticals. It also explores the precise breeding strategies for augmentation of their content and amelioration of their quality in crop plants under all commodity categories including cereals and millets, oilseeds, pulses, fruits and nuts, and vegetables. The compendium comprise 5 sections dedicated to these 5 commodity groups and presents enumeration on the concepts, strategies, tools and techniques of nutraceutomics. These sections include 50 chapters devoted to even number of major crop plants. These chapters present deliberations on the biochemistry and medicinal properties of the nutracuticals contained; genetic variation in their contents; classical genetics and breeding for their quantitative and qualitative improvement; tissue culture and genetic engineering for augmentation of productivity and quality; and sources of genes underlying their biosynthesis. They also include comprehensive enumeration on genetic mapping of the genes and QTLs controlling the contents and profile of the nutraceuticals and molecular breeding for their further improvement through marker assisted selection and backcross breeding tools. Prospects of post-genomic precise breeding strategies including genome-wide association mapping, genomic selection, allele mining, and genome editing are also discussed. This compendium fills the gap in academia, and research and development wings of the private sector industries interested in an array of subjects including genetics, genomics, tissue culture, genetic engineering, molecular breeding, genomics-assisted breeding, bioinformatics, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, entomology, pharmacognosy, IPR, etc., and will also facilitate understanding of the policy making agencies and people in the socio-economic domain and research sponsoring agencies.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction and review of state-of-the-art biotechnological tools in enhancement of bioactive compounds in medicinal and aromatic plants. Plant bioactive compounds are plant-based natural products that display a variety of pharmacological applications. These bioactive compounds are important as medicines, pigments, flavorings and drugs because most of the pharmaceutical industries are highly dependent on medicinal plants and their extraction. The book introduces a systematic overview of state-of-the-art biotechnological techniques such as Omics, Crisper /Cas9 and RNAi to enhance the plant bioactive contents as well as enlists various in vitro techniques, hairy root culture and transgenic technology to enhance plant bioactive contents using plant tissue culture approaches. The book also provides an overview of the role of induced mutation, biotic and abiotic stress to increase the bioactive contents in plants and discusses the significant role of endophytes to enhance the contents of plant bioactive compound. The book also opens discussions related to standard operating procedures using hydroponics system of cultivation for significant enhancement of bioactive compound(s) and much more. This book serves as an excellent reference book for the researchers working in the field of plant secondary metabolites and pharmaceutical industries at global level.