Drought stress decreases crop growth, yield, and can further exacerbate pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination. Tolerance and adaptation to drought stress is an important trait of agricultural crops like maize. However, maize genotypes with contrasting drought tolerances have been shown to possess both common and genotype-specific adaptations to cope with drought stress. In this research, the phys...

The effect of drought stress and abscisic acid (ABA) applied at tillering stage (55 days after sowing) was compared in 2 wheat cultivars differing in drought tolerance. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) and contents of endogenous ABA in plants were measured at 3 days of drought stress in cv. Chakwal-97 (drought tolerant) and cv. Punjab-96 (drought susceptible). A...

Heat waves in combination with drought are predicted to occur more frequently with climate warming, yet their interactive effects on crop carbon and water balance are still poorly understood. Hence, research on the capacity of crops to withstand and recover from the combined stress is urgently needed. This study investigated the effects of drought and heat wave on a crop species as well as the ...

Plant drought stress response and resistance are complex biological processes that need to be analyzed at a systems level using genomics and physiological approaches to dissect experimental models that address drought stresses encountered by crops in the field. Toward this goal, a controlled, sublethal, moderate drought (mDr) treatment system was developed in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ...

To unravel the molecular mechanisms of drought responses in tomato, gene expression profiles of two drought-tolerant lines identified from a population of Solanum pennellii introgression lines, and the recurrent parent S. lycopersicum cv. M82, a drought-sensitive cultivar, were investigated under drought stress using tomato microarrays. Around 400 genes identified were responsive to drought str...

This study was conducted to evaluate antioxidant enzyme activities in four caprifig varieties under drought stress and subsequent rewatering in order to screen drought tolerance. Leaf relative water content and membrane stability index significantly reduced under drought stress. ‘Shah Anjir’ and ‘Khormaei’ were able to preserve the highest relative water content and membrane stability index lev...

Durum wheat is susceptible to terminal drought which can greatly decrease grain yield. Breeding to improve crop yield is hampered by inadequate knowledge of how the physiological and metabolic changes caused by drought are related to gene expression. To gain better insight into mechanisms defining resistance to water stress we studied the physiological and transcriptome responses of three durum...

Water is a critical environmental factor that restricts the geographic distribution of plants. Sheepgrass [Leymus chinensis, (Trin.) Tzvel] is an important forage grass in the Eurasia Steppe and a close germplasm for wheat and barley. This native grass adapts well to adverse environments such as cold, salinity, alkalinity and drought, and it can survive when the soil moisture may be less than 6...

Differences in drought stress tolerance within diverse rice genotypes have been attributed to genetic diversity and epigenetic alterations. DNA methylation is an important epigenetic modification that influences diverse biological processes, but its effects on rice drought stress tolerance are poorly understood. In this study, methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing and an Affymetrix Gene...