Environmental constraints like salinity and drought hinder plant growth by affecting plant morphology, physiology, biochemistry, and molecular processes, final crop productivity and threat to global food security. Researches on plant responses to salinity and drought stress is ongoing worldwide. Novel breeding strategies are being adopted due to their short-term impact on agriculture. Given agriculture’s current challenges, we must consider how to effectively transfer laboratory knowledge to the field to mitigate these challenges. This collection discusses plant responses to drought and salinity.

This article belongs to the Collection Understanding the Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Salinity stress is an abiotic element that negatively affects the growth and yield of Solanaceous plants. Salt stress influences the physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses of these plants by altering their metabolisms. For the alleviation of salinity stress in Solanaceous crops, agronomic, cultural, breeding, and contemporary transgenic techniques may be useful.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

This research work showed the ascorbic acid role in lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) plants, by regulating the growth and development and alleviating the damaging effects of salinity stress. Salinity stress limit biomass production and thus plant growth. We demonstrate the important functions of ascorbic acid in response to salinity stress, and protective role of ascorbic acid in maintaining antioxidant enzymes system of lettuce in salinity stress. Ascorbic acid application improved the growth and biomass production, enhanced the activity of antioxidant enzymes, and promoted root growth; Hence, ascorbic acid facilitates lettuce plants to improve growth and development under salinity stress conditions.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Drought tolerance involved activation of various metabolic pathways such as GABA shunt pathway that significantly improve plant growth and metabolism homeostasis during drought stress. The degree of tolerance to drought stress in durum wheat (Triticum durum L.) might be connected with ROS scavenging systems and the activation of antioxidant enzymes that were associated with activation of GABA shunt pathway and the production of GABA. Generally, our data showed that different wheat cultivars responded differently to water deficit stress during the seedling growth stage.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Soybean is one of the most cultivated rainfed crops; it is affected by soil drying causing yield losses. An internal chemical signalling modulates how plants exchange gas with the atmosphere, and so is closely related to crop growth and yield. It is important to understand which tissue promotes this chemical signal; the root or the shoot. The knowledge of how that signal is moving throughout the plant is needed to guide crop breeding programs.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is an important crop providing calories to millions of people, and enhancement in productivity is a priority for breeders, farmers, industrialists and policy makers. High-throughput kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) has been successfully deployed to evaluate genotypic and phenotypic mechanism controlling traits of economic importance. We show that KASP markers helped to screen genotypes performing better under drought stress condition, and utilising gentoypes Markaz, Bhakar Star, China 2, Aas and Chakwal-50 for developing drought-tolerant varieties.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Drought affects arid and semi-arid regions and climate change accentuate the situation. Therefore, finding tolerant species is a solution. Under water stress, Pistacia atlantica, an endangered species, is well adapted and recovered better compared with Pistacia vera. P. atlantica is a potential species to rehabilitate arid regions and may be used as drought-tolerant rootstock for the cultivation of P. vera.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

This study aims to determine the effect of combined stresses, salinity and alkalinity, on oat crop. Twenty-one germplasms of Avena spp. were used and evaluated under different stress combinations. The root architecture and anatomical traits were observed and it was found that tolerant species maintained greater growth under these conditions. Furthermore, this study revealed that ion homeostasis is crucial for salinity–alkalinity stress tolerance.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.

Increased salinity in vast areas of the world poses a serious threat for sustainable cultivation of food crops to feed the human population. Advancements in agricultural practices (e.g. tissue culture technology) and use of novel compounds/strategies are needed to achieve global food security. The current study deciphered the significance of silicon addition in tissue culture medium for sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) cultivation in saline areas.

This article belongs to the collection Understanding Mechanistic Basis of Plant Adaptation to Salinity and Drought.