Impact of Abiotic Stresses on Wheat Growth and Adaptation

Although abiotic stresses have always been important, recent developments due to climate change made them more important than ever. On the one hand, the natural occurrences of problems mostly due to climatic anomalies and, on the other hand, anthropogenic contributions to these problems to further aggravate them started putting the sustainability of crop production under greater risk than before. Being the most widely grown stable crop in most regions of the world, wheat is also affected by these problems, suffering yield losses. Both trends of global warming, particularly at lower latitudes and altitudes, and frequent occurrences of frost damage, also caused by excessive early growth due to milder winters followed by unpredictable low temperatures, result in yield reductions. Beside natural problems like high temperatures and irregular precipitation causing yield losses through drought effect, inefficient use of present water resources, particularly in developing countries, is another threat for sustainability of wheat production even under irrigated conditions. While wheat yields are reduced by insufficiency of precipitation in some environments, heavy rains falling in short duration causes waterlogging and lodging problems in others. In addition to climate change, human activities causing changes in land use, like deforestation and urbanization, increase these problems. Frequently reported increases in salinity, resulting in yield losses caused by both osmotic stress and ion toxicities, and sodicity, resulting in other problems caused by reduced soil hydraulic conductivity, are some other important abiotic stress factors. The effect of abiotic stresses on wheat growth, with special reference to wheat research in Türkiye, will be discussed in this chapter.