Emerging Technologies and Management of Crop Stress Tolerance

Chapter 16

Manipulating Osmolytes for Breeding Salinity-Tolerant Plants

Noushina Iqbal, Shahid Umar and Rahat Nazar

Soil salinity is a major problem effecting plant growth and production at a considerable rate. Alleviation of the adverse effects of salinity stress is desirable for development of salinity tolerant crops. Salinity causes osmotic stress, ionic stress and oxidative stress in plants and disturbs cellular homeostasis. Plants’ ability to tolerate osmotic stress depends on multiple biochemical pathways that facilitate retention of water and maintains ion homeostasis. Osmolytes are compounds found to increase under salinity stress and help in osmoregulation and in protection of enzyme activity, detoxification of reactive oxygen species ...