Climate Change and Wheat (Triticum spp.)

The objective of this chapter is to review all the details of wheat responses to climate change (CC). First of all, CC and global warming should not be used interchangeably. Global warming started a long time ago (about 100 years) and is the result of climate change. Moreover, climate change means a change in the parameters that make up the climate in the long term. Available scientific data show that the temperature of earth will annually increase by an average (1.4–5.8) °C by the end of 2100, and this can affect plants, ecology, ecosystem, ecosystem balance, many other ecological/climatic parameters, etc. to different levels. In particular, CC worsens plant development by causing an increase in ambient temperature, humidity, plant growth stages, soil properties, photosynthesis rate and capacity, water use efficiency (WUE), earliness, maturity, harvestability, harvesting and threshing, and some agronomic traits such as plant height, 1000 grain weight, and tillering. When growth factors such as light, temperature, and humidity are inadequate in areas where wheat landraces are grown, factors associated with various chemical and physiological properties are of great importance in developing mechanisms to minimize the effect of CC. Generally speaking, the effect of CC in wheat cultivation is mostly caused by “high temperature” and/or “drought.” As it is known, wheat is the most strategic of more than 400,000 cultivated plants in the world; it is consumed by a wide range of human and animal populations; it can easily adapt to changing climatic conditions, and it can grow where no other plant grows, with its flexibility in terms of this feature. Therefore, in order to reduce the vulnerability associated with CC and wheat, adaptation strategies should be applied as much as possible and emphasis should be given to the use of wild relatives (CWR) and landraces, agronomy, plant breeding, tissue culture techniques, and genetic engineering applications as “parent(s)” or “genitor” in selection(s) or hybridization program(s) with a multidisciplinary approach for yield and yield components associated with various physiological and morphological traits.