Wheat and abiotic stress challenges: An overview

Wheat, the “King of Cereals,” is called so because of its importance as a staple crop throughout the world. Though high-yielding wheat varieties have the potential ability to provide sufficient food to feed the worldwide growing populations through their huge productivity, the main constraint toward global wheat production is the adverse effects of many biotic and abiotic stresses. Several abiotic stresses, for instance, water stress (both waterlogging and drought conditions), temperature stress (i.e., cold stress as well as high temperature or heat exposure), heavy metal (metalloid) toxicity, salinity stress, and UV-B exposure adversely affect different growth and developmental stages of wheat. Many biological and physiological processes are being hindered, different biochemical functions are being altered, cellular signaling cascades and gene expression patterns are being upregulated and/or downregulated, cellular water status and homeostatic balance of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are being changed, and activities of many enzymatic and/or nonenzymatic antioxidants are being induced as a result of the onset of these abiotic stresses whether in early or terminal growth stages in wheat, leading to significant yield losses of this crop. Keeping these points in mind, we will discuss in this chapter the challenges that are being emerged from the harmful effects of different abiotic stresses in wheat crops, and last but not least, some future perspectives regarding these facts will also be pointed out.