Managing Salt Tolerance in Plants

Soil salinity is a major abiotic stress, which limits the growth and productivity of plants and crops. There are two phases of salinity stress on plants, namely, the osmotic phase and the ionic phase. The osmotic phase happens immediately after salinity stress and leads to a rapid inhibition in the growth of the plant. On the other hand, ionic phase occurs after several days or weeks of salinity stress. In the ionic phase, ions are accumulated in highly toxic levels in the shoot, which adversely affects the shoot function. Plants have developed various physiological and biological mechanisms for tolerating and dealing with salinity. It can be bifurcated into three mechanisms which include osmotic tolerance, ion exclusion and tissue tolerance. Research has also been conducted for developing molecular and genomic approaches that can help crop plants develop tolerance towards salinity stress. This book provides significant information of on this topic to help develop a good understanding of salinity tolerance in plants. It consists of contributions made by international experts. With state-of-the-art inputs by acclaimed experts of this field, this book targets students and professionals associated with the field of agriculture and plant science.