Mutation Breeding and Drought Stress Tolerance in Plants

Abstract

Undoubtedly, drought is one of the prime abiotic stresses in the world. Drought stress from anthesis to maturity affects many morphological and physiological aspects of any plant and significantly reduces final yield. There is a serious need to identify stress-tolerant genotypes that can grow and flourish well under harsh environments. Among the different present approaches, mutagenesis and mutation breeding and the isolation of improved or novel phenotypes in conjunction with conventional breeding programs can result in mutant varieties endowed with new and desirable variations of agrometrical traits. Mutation breeding is the purposeful application of mutations in plant breeding. Resistant varieties for stresses can be developed by either (1) direct or (2) indirect breeding approaches. Mutagenesis for resistance to abiotic stresses is a well-known efficient breeding approach in order to create new desirable genetic variability, as the use of the traditional breeding methods have narrowed genetic variability in the cultivated crop species over a long period. Thus, mutation-assisted plant breeding will play a crucial role in the generation of “designer crop varieties” to address the uncertainties of global climate variability, and the challenges of global plant-product insecurity. Molecular mutation breeding will significantly increase both the efficiency and efficacy of mutation techniques in crop breeding. High-throughput DNA technologies for mutation screening such as TILLING (targeting induced limited lesions in genomes), high-resolution melt analysis (HRM), ECOTILLING, and so on are the key techniques and resources in molecular mutation breeding.