CONCLUSIONS
With changing climate and global warming, drought and associated stress
are going to be of prime importance in agriculture as developing drought
resistant cultivars is central to achieving Zero Hunger, one of the 17
goals proposed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (FAO,
2020). Root is the first organ that senses the changes in soil moisture
and sends signal to adapt at morphological, anatomical, and molecular
scales. These changes are accompanied with changes in root encompassing
the first response from plant to counter water scarcity. Plant breeding
focusing on modifying the RSA for drought avoidance mechanisms such as
root specific suberin deposition, ABA, various phytohormones such as
auxin, phenolics, along with crop management practices such as timely
supply of micro and macro nutrients might result in drought resilient
crops.
Hence, understanding of the RSA is necessary to produce high-yielding
crops under water-limiting conditions, particularly in the dryland
agricultural system, for ensuring global food security. This goal
requires an overall understanding of plant response to drought and
related stresses including the response from root which is often
difficult to decipher due to lack of direct access to roots for
analysis. Newer technologies and methods to analyze root response are
coming forth and are bound to evolve with fast changing technologies
like imaging technology and artificial intelligence. Nevertheless,
understanding root is of prime importance to create high-yielding crops
under water stress and RSA is going to be among the important breeding
traits in near future.
Acknowledgments
AAE is thankful to the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India for
providing the Ramalingaswami fellowship which facilitated the writing of
this manuscript. SG acknowledges grant provided by the Institute of
Eminence, University of Delhi sanction order IoE-DU/MRP/2022/056.