Breeding for Drought Tolerance in Maize (<i>Zea mays</i> L.)

Abstract

Drought, like many other environmental stresses, has adverse effects on crop yield including maize (Zea mays L.). Low water availability is one of the major causes for maize yield reductions affecting the majority of the farmed regions around the world. Therefore, the development of drought-tolerant lines becomes increasingly more important. In maize, a major effect of water stress is a delay in silking, resulting in an increase in the anthesis-silking interval, which is an important cause of yield failures. Diverse strategies are used by breeding programs to improve drought tolerance. Conventional breeding has improved the drought tolerance of temperate maize hybrids and the use of managed drought environments, accurate phenotyping, and the identification and deployment of secondary traits has been effective in improving the drought tolerance of tropical maize populations and hybrids as well. The contribution of molecular biology will be potential to identify key genes involved in metabolic pathways related to the stress response. Functional genomics, reverse and forward genetics, and comparative genomics are all being deployed with a view to achieving these goals. However, a multidisciplinary approach, which ties together breeding, physiology and molecular genetics, can bring a synergistic understanding to the response of maize to water deficit and improve the breeding efficiency.