Developing climate-resilient crops: adaptation to abiotic stress-affected areas

Abiotic stresses, caused by climate change pose a huge threat to agriculture. In particular, climate change related drought stress will have large negative impact on crop growth, development and eventually production. As the changes in the weather patterns have a direct impact on farmers' capability to grow crops, the urgency of improving farmers' adaptive capacity should be addressed to minimize the potential negative impacts of climate change. Availability of adaptation technologies that would reduce crop production losses is of utmost importance in attaining climate change resilient crops. One potential adaptive measure is the use of crop varieties resilient to climate change related stresses. Various breeding technologies have been used to develop new durable crops, if not, enhanced or improve the ability of crops to survive under adverse environmental conditions, brought about by the changes in climate. One of the most sustainable strategies to mitigate these effects to agriculture is the development of climate resilient crops. Crops that can thrive under extreme weather conditions as effects of the changing climates. Conventional breeding may not be enough to develop new breeds of crops with better durability to abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, submergence, high and low temperatures. Thus, other strategies as stand-alone or in combination with conventional breeding, are explored to enhance genetic variability for improving tolerance to abiotic stresses. These are the biotechnological approaches including marker assisted breeding, mutation breeding, genetic engineering and genome editing. These technologies offer a better future for developing climate change resilient crops.