Salt Stress Tolerance in Rice and Wheat: Physiological and Molecular Mechanism

Abstract

Salinity is a major obstacle to global grain crop production, especially rice and wheat. The identification and improvement of salt-tolerant rice and wheat depending upon the genetic diversity and salt stress response could be a promising solution to deal with soil salinity and the increasing food demands. Plant responses to salt stress occur at the organismic, cellular, and molecular levels and the salt stress tolerance in those crop plant involving (1) regulation of ionic homeostasis, (2) maintenance of osmotic potential, (3) ROS scavenging and antioxidant enzymes activity, and (4) plant hormonal regulation. In this chapter, we summarize the recent research progress on these four aspects of plant morpho-physiological and molecular response, with particular attention to ionic, osmolytic, enzymatic, hormonal and gene expression regulation in rice and wheat plants. Moreover, epigenetic diversity could emerge as novel of phenotypic variations to enhance plant adaptation to an adverse environmental conditions and develop stable stress-resilient crops. The information summarized here will be useful for accelerating the breeding of salt-tolerant rice. This information may help in studies to reveal the mechanism of plant salt tolerance, screen high efficiency and quality salt tolerance in crops.