Agriculture is currently facing multi-faceted threats in the form of unpredictable weather variability, frequent droughts and scarcity of irrigation water, together with the degradation of soil resources and declining environmental health. These stresses result in the modification of plant physiology to impart greater resilience to changing abiotic and biotic environments, but only at the cost of declining plant productivity. In light of these facts, assessing the status of natural resource bases, and understanding the mechanisms of soil-plant-environment interactions so as to devise adaptation and mitigation approaches, represent great and imminent challenges for all of us. In this context, it is essential to understand the potential applications of modern tools, existing coping mechanisms and their integration, as this will allow us to develop suitable advanced mitigation strategies. From a broader perspective, the book deals with crop-environment interaction in the context of changing climatic conditions. To do so, it addresses four major aspects: Understanding the mechanism of carbon dynamics in the soil-plant-environment continuum; greenhouse gas fluxes in agricultural systems; and soil properties influenced by climate change and carbon sequestration processes. Mitigation and management of the photo-thermal environment to improve crop productivity; soil health under variable climate; reducing agro-ecosystem evapotranspiration losses through biophysical controls; and heat stress in field crops and its management. Studying the impact of climate change on biotic environments; insect-pest interactions; manifestations of disease; and adaptation strategies for island agro-ecosystems. Innovative approaches to assess stress impacts in crops, such as crop modeling, remote sensing, spectral stress indices etc. The book presents a collection of contributions from authoritative experts in their respective fields. Offering young researchers new perspectives and future research directions, it represents a valuable guide for graduate students and academics alike.

With contributions from experts in various specialties, Plant-Environment Interactions discusses recent advances in cellular and molecular regulation of stress tolerance. This third edition reviews new research in stress signal perception, cellular mechanisms, and genetic manipulation of stress tolerance for each individual stress. It addresses how to evaluate the level of plant tolerance to stress as well as how to link mechanisms identified through analysis of plant-environment interaction to producing stress-tolerant germplasm through biotechnology and traditional breeding. It also examines environmental stresses limiting plant productivity in agriculture, horticulture, and forestry.

This book provides information about plant–environment studies and challenges for plant improvement to achieve food security. Plants face a wide range of environmental challenges, which are expected to become more intense as a result of global climate change. Plant–environment interactions play an important role in the functioning of ecosystems. There are habitats throughout the world that present challenges to crop plants, such as through a lack of water and excessive, or toxic, salts in the soil. Soil properties represent a strong selection pressure for plant diversity and influence the structure of plant communities and participate to the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Plant communities selected by environment grow by modifying soil physical, chemical, and biological properties, with consequent effects on survival and growth of plants. The complexity of plant–environment interactions has recently been studied by developing a trait-based approach in which responses and effects of plants on environment were quantified and modeled. This fundamental research on plant–environment interaction in ecosystems is essential to transpose knowledges of functional ecology to environmental management. Plants have adapted to an incredible range of environment, and extensive researches on ecological and environmental plant physiology have provided mechanistic understanding of the survival, distribution, productivity, and abundance of plant species across the diverse climates of our planet. Ecophysiological techniques have greatly advanced our understanding of photosynthesis, respiration, plant water relations, and plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses, from instantaneous to evolutionary timescales. Ecophysiological studies also provide the basis for scaling plant physiological processes from the tissue to the canopy, ecosystem, region, and to a large extent, the entire globe. Given the above, the author proposes to bring forth a comprehensive book, “New Frontiers in Plant-Environment Interactions”, highlighting the various emerging techniques and applications that are currently being used in plant–environment interaction research and its future prospects. The author is sure that this book caters the need of all those who are working or have interest in the above topic.

Get cutting-edge information to improve crop breeding and productivity! Crop improvement will become progressively important over the next few decades as the world’s population is expected to top 10 billion people, with more than eight billion in developing countries alone. Genetic and Production Innovations in Field Crop Technology: New Developments in Theory and Practice tackles this enormous challenge by detailing the latest available research and innovations for crop breeders and physiologists for the twenty-first century. Respected multidisciplinary scientists comprehensively discuss cutting-edge advances in field crop technology and genetic production as they keep an eye on the goal of providing nutrition to a hungry world. Genetic and Production Innovations in Field Crop Technology emphasizes an integrated approach to solve global crop production problems and increase crop productivity. Crop research experts review methods of globally improving crop yield, food product efficiency, and providing adequate nutrition in diet. The authors discuss various types of field crops, including corn, soybeans, winter wheat, cassavas, rubber, sunflowers, and barley, as well as review the exciting innovations on the food production horizon. The text is extensively referenced and includes useful graphs and tables to clearly present data. Genetic and Production Innovations in Field Crop Technology presents: visionary articles by authorities in agricultural sciences statistical design axioms and modern plot techniques discussions of integration of crop physiology and plant breeding information on systematic collection and preservation of germplasm explanations of genetic diversity in soybeans corn breeding and production research—including the economics—in the United States research on cassava breeding in less favorable environments to alleviate poverty strategies for improving yielding potential of rubber in sub-optimal environments information on fine-tuning wheat genotype-by-environment interaction methodology reviews of QTL identification, mega-environment classification, and effective strategies for marker-based selection via GGE biplot analyses research on statistical properties and practical usefulness of the Scheffe-Calinski and Shukla models relative to genotype-by-environment interaction Genetic and Production Innovations in Field Crop Technology: New Developments in Theory and Practice belongs in every agricultural university library. Crop breeders, geneticists, agronomists and horticulturists, educators, and students will find this an invaluable research source for now and for the future.

Our image of plants is changing dramatically away from passive entities merely subject to environmental forces and organisms that are designed solely for the accumulation of photosynthate. Plants are revealing themselves to be dynamic and highly sensitive organisms that actively and competitively forage for limited resources, both above and below ground, organisms that accurately gauge their circumstances, use sophisticated cost-benefit analysis, and take clear actions to mitigate and control diverse environmental threats. Moreover, plants are also capable of complex recognition of self and non-self and are territorial in behavior. They are as sophisticated in behavior as animals but their potential has been masked because it operates on time scales many orders of magnitude less than those of animals. Plants are sessile organisms. As such, the only alternative to a rapidly changing environment is rapid adaptation. This book will focus on all these new and exciting aspects of plant biology.

Climate Change and Crop Stress: Molecules to Ecosystems expounds on the transitional period where science has progressed to ‘post-genomics’ and the gene editing era, putting field performance of crops to the forefront and challenging the production of practical applicability vs. theoretical possibility. Researchers have concentrated efforts on the effects of environmental stress conditions such as drought, heat, salinity, cold, or pathogen infection which can have a devastating impact on plant growth and yield. Designed to deliver information to combat stress both in isolation and through simultaneous crop stresses, this edited compilation provides a comprehensive view on the challenges and impacts of simultaneous stresses. Presents a multidisciplinary view of crop stresses, empowering readers to quickly align their individual experience and perspective with the broader context Combines the mechanistic aspects of stresses with the strategic aspects Presents both abiotic and biotic stresses in a single volume

Genotype-by-Environment Interaction (GEI) is a prevalent issue among crop farmers, plant breeders, geneticists, and production agronomists. This book brings together contributions from expert plant breeders and quantitative geneticists to better understand the relationship between crop performance and environment. This information can reduce the cost of extensive genotype evaluation by eliminating unnecessary testing sites and by fine-tuning breeding programs. Molecular aspects of GEI are discussed for the first time and key bibliographical references on GEI are included in an appendix.