Plant biotechnological tools: Solutions for raising climate-resilient crop plants

Published: 24-Dec-2021, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7715239

Introduction

Climate change is the main limiting factor for agricultural production, which constantly affects crop production worldwide (Del Buono 2021). Climate change mainly gives rise to numerous environmental stresses, including both abiotic (high salinity, drought, waterlogging, heat, cold, heavy metals, etc.) and biotic (virus, fungi, bacteria, nematodes, etc.) (Del Buono 2021). These stresses significantly reduce crop productivity by hampering physio-biochemical and molecular mechanisms, and develop challenges for food security worldwide (Molotoks et al. 2021). Consequently, there is an urgent prerequisite to combine the expertise of all disciplines of crop sciences with revolutionary attempts in crop production to sustain crop growth and thus enhance crop production. It is vital for summarizing adapting mechanisms of plants as that could be augmented employing genetic improvement of cultivars that can somewhat adapt to the altering environmental cues. In this scenario, modern plant biotechnological tools [(genome editing, transgenic breeding, multi-omics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, miRNAomics, ionomics, phenomics), epigenetic modifications, etc.)] are expected to play a vital role, with a clear mandate for innovative developments that can accelerate the rate of genetic progress required to meet the challenge for more food sustainability. During the last few years, several scientists have reviewed the attempts made in developing stress-resilient plants, e.g., temperature (Raza et al. 2021a; Bhardwaj et al. 2021); heavy metals (Jamla et al. 2021; Raza et al. 2021c); drought (Bhardwaj et al. 2021); salinity (Singhal et al. 2021); etc., using state-of-the-art biotechnological tools. Additionally, various advances count on continual breeding (conventional, speed breeding, fast-forward breeding, etc.), chemical treatments (including different plant growth regulators such as phytohormones and gaseous molecules), and/or amendment of stress-associated genetic makeup have been introduced to feed the growing population. Likewise, different breeding techniques such as speed breeding (Watson et al. 2018); and fast-forward breeding (Varshney et al. 2021) has been introduced for a food-secure world. The potential of different plant growth regulators has also been reviewed by various scientists globally (Raza et al. 2021b; Mubarik et al. 2021; Kosakivska et al. 2021; Sabagh et al. 2021). In conclusion, to cope with the climate changes, modern biotechnological tools-mediated researches are still required to identify novel players that can improve the morphological, physiological, biochemical, cellular, and molecular processes, which can ultimately help in developing stress-resilient (single or combined) future plants to achieve a “zero hunger” goal. Therefore, we (Modern Phytomorphology Editors) are anticipated to receive valuable works dealing with crop production in the era of climate change.

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