Chapter 22 - Wild relatives of plants as sources for the development of abiotic stress tolerance in plants

Abstract

The abiotic stresses such as unfavorable temperature, drought, flood, salinity, and heavy metal stress are considered as major factors causing a huge impression on crop growth and productivity. The abiotic stresses can reduce as much as 50% of benefits for some important crops in the world through altering the physiological, morphological, biochemical, and molecular process of plants. Therefore, escape, avoidance, and tolerance mechanisms are very important for plants to survive against abiotic stresses. Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are considered as wild plant species of the same genus (mostly with the same gene pool) of a crop, which play a vital role in the development of crop species for various hostile environments. The gene pool CWRs wild relatives is considered in the choice of crops for today, which is simply a selection from vast. The CWRs helped a lot in the domestication of selected species of present day’s crops and played a vital role in feeding the human civilization. Under the present scenario of climate change, CWRs have got a vital dimension in crop improvement for combatting the adverse effects of climatic threats. Therefore, CWRs became more useful in molecular breeding for the sustainability of crop production in the modern era of climate change. In the chapter, we have been discussed on the wild relatives of plants assources for the development of abiotic stress tolerance in plants.