Abstract
Plants face a combination of different abiotic stresses under field conditions which are lethal to plant growth and production. Simultaneous occurrence of chilling and drought stresses in plants due to the drastic and rapid global climate changes, can alter the morphological, physiological and molecular responses. Both these stresses adversely affect the plant growth and yields due to physical damages, physiological and biochemical disruptions, and molecular changes. In general, the co-occurrence of chilling and drought combination is even worse for crop production rather than an individual stress condition. Plants attain various common and different physiological and molecular protective approaches for tolerance under chilling and drought stresses. Nevertheless, plant responses to a combination of chilling and drought stresses are unique from those to individual stress. In the present review, we summarized the recent evidence on plant responses to chilling and drought stresses on shared as well as unique basis and tried to find a common thread potentially underlying these responses. We addressed the possible cross talk between plant responses to these stresses and discussed the potential management strategies for regulating the mechanisms of plant tolerance to drought and/or chilling stresses. To date, various novel approaches have been tested in minimizing the negative effects of combine stresses. Despite of the main improvements there is still a big room for improvement in combination of drought and chilling tolerance. Thus, future researches particularly using biotechnological and molecular approaches should be carried out to develop genetically engineered plants with enhanced tolerance against these stress factors.
Highlights
Crops grown under open environments often pass through periods of abiotic stress during their life cycle
Basic leucine zipper proteins are abscisic acid (ABA) responsive transcription factors active under osmotic stress DEHYDRATION-RESPONSIVE ELEMENT BINDING PROTEIN 2 family is involved in heat acclimation and positive regulation of transcription HD-ZIP is related to genes responsive to dehydration and involved in cell differentiation Eukaryotic Release Factor is involved in regulation of growth, translational termination (Continued)
Emergence of intricate stress combinations and their impacts on crop growth and productivity in modern day agriculture are the outcomes of global climate change
Summary
Crops grown under open environments often pass through periods of abiotic stress during their life cycle. Crops experience periods of extreme low temperatures in many regions of the world (Ruelland et al, 2009; Wang et al, 2016), and are exposed to limited water availability owing to either drought or disturbed water movement and uptake under low ambient temperatures (Shinozaki et al, 2003; Zhang J.Z. et al, 2004; Beck et al, 2007) Such an exposure of plants to chilling and drought simultaneously hampers plant growth, and is detrimental to productivity (Tommasini et al, 2008). We have tried to give a general overview of shared and unique responses of crop plants to drought and chilling stresses and discuss some possible mitigation strategies to cope with these stresses for minimizing their damage on crop plants
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
