Introduction - why breed for drought and low N tolerance?; Conceptual framework - breeding; Conventional approaches to improving the drought and low N tolerance of maize; Conventional approaches challenged; The challenge of breeding for drought and low N tolerance; Maize under drought and low N stress; Conceptual framework - physiology; Water and the maize plant; Nitrogen and the maize plant; Maize under drought and low N stress - consequences for breeding; Stress management; Drought; Low N stress; Statistical designs and layout of experiments; Increasing the number of replicates; Improved statistical designs; Field layout; Border effects from alleys; Secondary traits; Why use secondary traits?; How do we decide on the value of secondary traits in a drought or low N breeding program?; Secondary traits that help to identify drought tolerance; Secondary traits that help to identify low N tolerance: Selection indices - Combining information on secondary traits with grain yield; Combining information from various experiments; Breeding strategies; Choice of germplasm; Breeding schemes; Biotechnology: potential and constraints for improving drought and low N tolerance; The role of the farmer in selection; What is farmer participatory research and why is it important?; What is new about farmer participatory research?; Participatory methodologies.

This topic is a unique attempt to simultaneously tackle theoretical and practical aspects in drought phenotyping, through both crop-specific and cross-cutting approaches. It is designed for – and will be of use to – practitioners and postgraduate students in plant science, who are grappling with the challenging task of evaluating germplasm performance under different water regimes. In Part I, different methodologies are presented for accurately characterising environmental conditions, implementing trials, and capturing and analysing the information this generates, regardless of the crop. Part II presents the state-of-art in research on adaptation to drought, and recommends specific protocols to measure different traits in major food crops (focusing on particular cereals, legumes and clonal crops). The topic is part of the CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme’s efforts to disseminate crop research information, tools and protocols, for improving characterisation of environments and phenotyping conditions. The goal is to enhance expertise in testing locations, and to stimulate the development and use of traits related to drought tolerance, as well as innovative protocols for crop characterisation and breeding.

Plant Breeding Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. Many of the crops widely grown today stem from a very narrow genetic base. Understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide.

The rapid population growth and the increase in the per capita income, especially in the group of emerging countries referred to as BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has created huge pressure for the expansion of the agricultural growing area and the crop yields to meet the rising demand. As a result, many areas that have been considered marginal for growing crops, due to their low fertility, drought, salinity, and many other abiotic stresses, have now been incorporated in the production system. Additionally, climate change has brought new challenges to agriculture to produce food, feed, fiber and biofuels. To cope with these new challenges, many plant breeding programs have reoriented their breeding scope to stress tolerance in the last years. The authors of this book have collected the most recent advances and discoveries applied to breeding for abiotic stresses in this book, starting with new physiological concepts and breeding methods, and moving on to discuss modern molecular biological approaches geared to the development of improved cultivars tolerant to most sorts of abiotic stress. Written in an easy to understand style, this book is an excellent reference work for students, scientists and farmers interested in learning how to breed for abiotic stresses scenarios, presenting the state-of-the-art in plant stresses and allowing the reader to develop a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms of tolerance to abiotic stresses and how to breed for them.

The book focuses on the principles and practices of tropical maize improvement with special emphasis on early and extra-early maize to feed the increasing population in Sub-Saharan Africa. It highlights the similarities and differences between results obtained in temperate regions of the world and WCA in terms of corroboration or refutation of genetic principles and theory of maize breeding. The book is expected to be of great interest to maize breeders, advanced undergraduates, graduate students, professors and research scientists in the national and international research institutes all over the world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. It will also serve as a useful reference for agricultural extension and technology transfer systems, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), seed companies and community-based seed enterprises, policy makers, and all those who are interested in generating wealth from agriculture and alleviating hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This book provides a fresh, updated perspective of the current status and perspectives in genetic improvement of a diverse array of tropical crops. The first part covers aspects which are relevant across crops, namely how to maximize the use of genetic information through modern bioinformatic approaches and how to use statistics as a tool to sustain increased genetic gains and breeding efficiency. The second part of the book provides an updated view of some seed-propagated crops, such as rice, maize and oil palm, as well as crops propagated through vegetative means such as sweet potato, cassava, banana and sugarcane. Each chapter addresses the main breeding objectives, markets served, current breeding approaches, biotechnology, genetic progress observed, and in addition a glimpse into the future for each of these selected and important tropical crops.

This book, which contains 14 chapters, covers all aspects of rainfed agriculture, starting with its potential, current status, rainwater harvesting and supplementary irrigation, to policies, approaches, institutions for upscaling, and impacts of integrated water management programmes in rainfed areas.

“Cereal Genomics” published in 2004 served the purpose of collecting all information on cereal genomics at one place and was well received by the cereal workers through-out the world. The last eight years have witnessed significant advancement in the field of cereal genomics. For instance, high-density genetic maps, physical maps, QTL maps and even draft genome sequence have become available for several cereal species. Furthermore, the next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have revolutionized genomics research, so that it is possible now to sequence genomes of hundreds or thousands of accessions of an individual cereal crop. Significant amounts of data generated using these NGS technologies created a demand for computational tools to analyse this massive data. In view of these developments, the Editors realised that there was a need to have an updated volume on the present status and future prospects of cereal genomics. These developments related to technology and the tools have been documented in this volume, thus supplementing our earlier edited volume “Cereal Genomics”. “Cereal Genomics II” discusses advances in cereal genomics research made during the last eight years, and presents state-of-art cereal genomics and its utilization involving both basic research such as comparative genomics and functional genomics, and applied research like QTL mapping and molecular breeding.

Abiotic stress adversely affects crop production worldwide, decreasing average yields for most of the crops to 50%. Among various abiotic stresses affecting agricultural production, drought stress is considered to be the main source of yield reduction around the globe. Due to an increasing world population, drought stress will lead to a serious food shortage by 2050. The situation may become worse due to predicated global climate change that may multiply the frequency and duration and severity of such abiotic stresses. Hence, there is an urgent need to improve our understanding on complex mechanisms of drought stress tolerance and to develop modern varieties that are more resilient to drought stress. Identification of the potential novel genes responsible for drought tolerance in crop plants will contribute to understanding the molecular mechanism of crop responses to drought stress. The discovery of novel genes, the analysis of their expression patterns in response to drought stress, and the determination of their potential functions in drought stress adaptation will provide the basis of effective engineering strategies to enhance crop drought stress tolerance. Although the in-depth water stress tolerance mechanisms is still unclear, it can be to some extent explained on the basis of ion homeostasis mediated by stress adaptation effectors, toxic radical scavenging, osmolyte biosynthesis, water transport, and long distance signaling response coordination. Importantly, complete elucidation of the physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms for drought stress, perception, transduction, and tolerance is still a challenge to the plant biologists. The findings presented in volume 1 call attention to the physiological and biochemical modalities of drought stress that influence crop productivity, whereas volume 2 summarizes our current understanding on the molecular and genetic mechanisms of drought stress resistance in plants.