Wheat Wild Relatives : Developing Abiotic Stress Tolerance Under Climate Change

Wheat Wild Relatives: Developing Abiotic Stress Tolerance under Climate Change presents a state-of-the-art outline of the problem, including issues, opportunities, and modern developments in the utilization of Wild Wheat Relatives (WWR) and related neglected species for wheat crop improvement, specifically focusing on environmental constraints. The book comprehensively discusses different wheat wild relatives, including major genus Triticum and Aegilops and their utilization in mitigating different environmental constraints using agronomic, physiological, and molecular approaches. Chapters provide insights into the advancement in the deployment of wheat genetic resources, including wild relatives and neglected species for crop improvement towards environmental issues.

Wheat is a major staple food crop that has largely been focused for fulfilling the food requirements of world population during the Green revolution. Since then, it has come to cover more agricultural land than any other commercial crop. Continuously changing climatic conditions have drastically affected wheat production, with yields largely limited by environmental constraints. Theses production losses caused by crop vulnerability to climate change may be resolved by using wheat wild relatives that are closely related to cultivated genotypes and known for their beneficial traits.

• Covers a variety of wheat genetic resources, including wheat wild relatives (WWR) and neglected wheat species
• Describes advances in agronomic, biochemical, physiological, and molecular approaches to counter the effect of individual environmental issues of drought, heat, salt, cold, nutrients, and heavy metals constraints
• Explores the benefits of contemporary biotechnological tools, including whole genome sequencing and genome editing

Dr. Mohd. Kamran Khan is presently working as an Assistant Professor in Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Selcuk University, Turkey. With a doctorate degree in biotechnology, Dr. Khan has around sixteen years of research experience in the area of molecular biology and plant biotechnology. His research is evidenced by his publications in journals of international repute like AoB Plants, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plants, Plos One, 3 Biotech, Genetic R esources and Crop Evolution, Biology, Agronomy etc. . He has more than 50 research publications with more than 450 citations including the chapters in the books published from Elsevier and CRC Press Ltd. He is on editorial board of different reputed journals such as Plos One, Journal of Crop Science and Biotechnology, Frontiers in Plant Science, and All life. He has also reviewed manuscripts for different potential journals such as Scientific Reports, Journal of Applied Genetics, IJMS, Genes, Agronomy, Cells, Agriculture etc. He also edited special issues in journals such as Frontiers in Plant Science, Crop and Pasture Science, Agronomy etc. He has also edited the Elsevier book entitled ‘Abiotic Stresses in Wheat’. The research interests of Dr. Khan include biochemical and molecular changes in crop plants especially wheat under different biotic and abiotic stress conditions. He is also interested in looking for the role of genetic resources in developing tolerance in plants towards environmental constraints.

Dr. Anamika Pandey is currently working in the capacity of Assistant Professor at Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Faculty of Agriculture, Selcuk University, Turkey. She has handled a 1001 national project funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) related to the determination of novel genes regulating boron toxicity tolerance in some of the Poaceae family species including wild wheat. She earned her PhD degree in biotechnology and her current research focuses on identifying the novel genes and transcriptional factors in wild wheat species that are responsible for making them tolerant towards different biotic and abiotic stress conditions. With a research experience of 16 years in plant molecular biology, she has published several articles in SCI indexed journals. She has edited and reviewed for different reputed journals such as PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, BMC Plant Biology, Agriculture, IJMS, Frontiers in Plant Science, Crop and Pasture Science, PlosOne etc.

Dr. Mehmet Hamurcu is Full Professor at Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition at Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey and also designated as the Director of Konya Teknokent. He is working at Selcuk University since last 24 years and with more than 60 research publications, he has been coordinator of 5 TUBITAK, 1 Boren and 9 Selcuk University based projects. He has been member of Chamber of Agricultural Engineers and Turkish Biotechnology Association. He has guided several students and has an expertise in plant physiology with focus on mechanism of free radicals and antioxidants in plants, physiological adaptations and defense mechanisms in plants under biotic and abiotic stress conditions, different farming systems and hydroponic system.

Dr. Sait Gezgin is Full Professor and the Head of the Department of Soil science and Plant Nutrition, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey. Presently, he is also holding the position of Director of Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences. With more than 37 years of working experience at Selcuk University, he served at different academic and administrative positions. He published more than 180 articles in different national and international journals and gained more than 1650 citations and an h-index of 19. He has been project coordinator of around 19 different projects of national repute funded by TUBITAK, DPT, TAGEM and Selcuk University. He has vast research experience in soil management and plant nutrition based strategies. He has also been involved in different wheat fertilization programs in response to different abiotic stress growth conditions