Environmental factors contribute to over 70% of crop yield losses worldwide. Of these drought and salinity are the most significant causes of crop yield reduction. Rice is an important staple crop that feeds more than half of the world's population. However among the agronomically important cereals rice is the most sensitive to salinity. In the present study we show that exogenous expression of...

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is probably the most drought tolerant legume crop and it is also resistant to moderate salinity. In drought prone areas the plant is considered an insurance crop for subsistence farmers. During drought-triggered famines, grass pea can be the only food available and a lifesaver. In addition, grass pea is valuable for its abundant nutrients, especially protein and ...

Nutrient enrichment of the coastal zone places intense pressure on marine communities. Previous studies have shown that growth of intertidal mangrove forests is accelerated with enhanced nutrient availability. However, nutrient enrichment favours growth of shoots relative to roots, thus enhancing growth rates but increasing vulnerability to environmental stresses that adversely affect plant wat...

Drought and salinity are among the environmental factors that constrain agricultural productivity most dramatically. Classical breeding programs aiming to improve stress tolerance have been hampered by the multigenic nature of the trait and the seemingly scarce natural genetic variability in crop plants. Novel genetic determinants governing the function of stomata and improving the performance ...

Microbial potential uptake and regeneration rates of ammonium (NH4 ) were studied along a salinity gradient (salinities 0.2–34.4) in the Mississippi River plume during an extreme drought in spring 2000. Chlorophyll concentrations up to 30 g L 1 were highest in the lowand mid-salinity regions (salinities 8.5–28.2) and comparable to records of other years but extended over smaller areas than duri...

abstract various mathematical water uptake models have been introduced for plants response to combined drought and salinity stress. the reduction functions are classified as additive, multiplicative and conceptual models. in this study six different macroscopic reduction functions, namely; van genuchten (additive and multiplicative), dirksen et al., van dam et al, skaggs et al and homaee were e...

Plant growth and productivity are greatly affected by environmental stresses such as drought, high salinity, and low temperature. Expression of a variety of genes is induced by these stresses in various plants. The products of these genes function not only in stress tolerance but also in stress response. In the signal transduction network from perception of stress signals to stress-responsive g...

The NAC (NAM, ATAF, and CUC) proteins share a highly conserved NAC domain and constitute a large family of plant-specific transcriptional factors. We have isolated a drought-induced NAC gene from Arachis hypogaea, named AhNAC2 (Arachis hypogaea NAC2) but its specific role remains unknown. In this study, we found that transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing AhNAC2 lines were hypersensitive to ABA ...

Marigold has special importance and application in landscape designing. Nowadays, various species and cultivars of this plant are grown in many climates, where different environmental stresses such as freezing, salinity and drought can lead to vegetative disorders. This study was carried out to investigate the interactions between salinity and ammonium nitrate on seed germination, vegetative gr...

BACKGROUND Drought is a major abiotic stress that affects crop productivity worldwide. Sugarcane can withstand periods of water scarcity during the final stage of culm maturation, during which sucrose accumulation occurs. Meanwhile, prolonged periods of drought can cause severe plant losses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In a previous study, we evaluated the transcriptome of drought-stressed...