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Another review by Roy et al. (2021) outlined the key roles played by plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, endophytes, and mycorrhiza, and the inherent mechanisms associated with salt stress alleviation, suggesting that the rhizosphere microbiome could be designed to enhance the growth and productivity of salt-susceptible plants. Cartagena et al. (2021) reported a comparative transcriptome analysis of root types in salt-tolerant and sensitive rice varieties subjected to salinity stress, and the results revealed important transcriptional regulation of stress responses. It is the need of the hour to combine notional model based on the present convention of salt stress responses with various multidisciplinary approaches for mitigating salinity stress in crop plants (Wani et al., 2020). Salt-tolerant crop plants and halophytes offer ideal plant models to explore promising stress-responsive genes and metabolites to amend salt stress responses in crop plants. [Extracted from the article]

Common abiotic stresses in rain-fed rice areas like drought can occur at any phase of crop growth and may occur periodically. Variation in intensity and severity of drought requires the use of different rice varieties and different nutrient management strategies. This study evaluated the morphological and physiological response of contrasting rice cultivars (Rajalaxmi, IR64, and Sahbhagidhan) to various nutrient combinations under water sufficience and scarce conditions. Drought stress at vegetative stage significantly reduced tiller formation, dry matter remobilization, and photosynthesis, leading to around 41.6% yield reduction. The effect of drought stress was more evident in Rajalaxmi and IR64 by a yield reduction of 57.4% and 43.2% as against only 24.3% in Sahbhagidhan. The combined application of nutrients resulted in higher proline accumulation, chlorophyll and carbohydrate concentrations, and photosynthesis and antioxidant enzymes, ultimately better tolerance to drought. This is reflected in higher values of tolerance indices and low scores of leaf drying and leaf rolling, especially for Sahbhagidhan. The combined application of P, K, Ca, Zn, and Fe resulted in 52.9, 53.3, 48.9% higher yield over P or K application. Rice drought tolerance can be managed by combining breeding of drought-tolerant high yielding varieties with the proper application of fertilizer nutrients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]