Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants: Role of Phytohormones

Abstract

Crop plants are encountered by various abiotic pressures which limit their growth and development. Stresses such as drought, heat, pathogen attack, heavy metal, salinity, and radiations impose negative effect on crop plants. The reduction in crop productivity in the current era of climate change is compromising the efforts/strategies used for sustainable agricultural practices. Therefore, plant stress physiologists are engineering plants with suitable exogenous signaling elicitors to engineer tolerance to various stresses. In the present chapter, an appraisal has been made in the “Introduction” section to first assess the damages caused by various abiotic stresses in crop plants. In the second section, we attempt to summarize the role of various plant hormones, namely, salicylic acid (SA), brassinosteroids (BRs), ethylene (ET), and methyl jasmonate (MJ) in enhancing abiotic stress tolerance. The current concept may lead to the development of strategies for unraveling the underlying mechanisms of plant hormone-mediated abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants.