ABSTRACT
Climate change is predicted to impact negatively on crop production because of variable temperatures and more frequent droughts in many parts of the world. Water deficiency is a significant problem for crop production, and crop breeding for drought tolerance is one step toward gaining greater yield stability. Many pathways and genes have been identified that can be manipulated through biotechnological methods to improve drought tolerance. This chapter introduces some of the drought tolerance genes and biotechnological methods that have been identified. To this end, the authors explain quantitative trait locus mapping for drought-related traits, plant tissue culture and drought, molecular genetics and genomics approaches for plant drought resistance, and bioinformatics and databases.
