Drought tolerance and stress hormones: From model organisms to forage crops

AIMAR D.; CALAFAT M.; ANDRADE A.M.; CARASSAY L.; ABDALA G.; MOLAS M.L.

Plants and Environment

InTech

Año: 2011; p. 1 - 272

The aim of this chapter is to present the results of an actual progression of water stress tolerance, its associated hormones and the crosstalk between them in Panicum virgatum(switchgrass), a member of the Poaceae family intensively studied as a source of lignocellulosic biomass to produce renewable energy. In recent years, important research efforts have been focused on improving the yields of crop species under water stress. Advances in functional genomics have been a major contribution to both the study and manipulation of abiotic stress in cereals as well as in forage species. These have been possible, in part, because of the increasing success in methods of grass genetic manipulation which have facilitated basic and applied research.Grass crops are centrally important targets for biotechnological improvement for food and fuel production. In particular the exploitation of a currently untapped resource of grass biomass (primarily lignocellulosic cell walls) is of high interest for sustainable fuel production. The Poaceae is the fourth largest plant family in the world -with over 10000 species distributed widely across the earth- and has an extensive synteny among the genomes of its members. Hence, what we learn about one member of the family can enhance our understanding of the entire group and contribute to the improvement of grass crops in meeting the challenges of attaining a sustainable agriculture for feeding the world’s population and for developing renewable supplies of fuel and industrial products.