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Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Taejon, 305-333, South Korea
(kwanghyunbaek{at}gmail.com)
Edited by M. Ashraf and P.J.C. Harris, Food Products Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. 2005. 725 p. $89.95 paperback. ISBN 1-56022-965-9.
As world population grows over the next decades, we will be faced with the problem of supplying enough food. The required food supply is expected to be achieved mainly by increasing crop productivity. However, abiotic stresses caused by drought, salinity, high and low temperatures, excessive and continuous land use for agriculture, environmental contamination, and perturbed weather conditions can reduce severely the required crop production. Studies on abiotic stresses are getting more attention due to the practical purpose of raising crop production and to pure scientific curiosity for understanding the tolerance mechanisms. Although there have been several books available on the topic of abiotic stresses, the most current and comprehensive book is this book, Abiotic Stresses: Plant Resistance Through Breeding and Molecular Approaches. If you want the most recent information regarding the advances in the genetics and physiology of abiotic stress response and crop improvement, this is the book you have to read.
This well-written and organized book, with contributions from 33 world-known researchers and edited by two distinguished plant researchers, is designed to present contemporary knowledge for important crops about their physiology and molecular biology in response to various abiotic stresses and breeding methods to overcome the stresses. Each chapter is concisely written about well-described topics. The book is organized into two major sections. The first section delivers general principles about abiotic stresses and explains strategies and genes for stress-tolerance mechanisms. These stresses include salinity, drought, flooding, metals, low nutrients, high temperature, and cold. The second section describes the current breeding methods used to increase tolerance to abiotic stresses of many important crops such as wheat, barley, rice, maize, oilseed crops, cotton, and tomato.
This book will be beneficial to both plant breeders and molecular biologists, because it combines the topics of physiology, tolerance genes, and breeding methods. When these topics are presented together, it is easy to compare all aspects of tolerance mechanisms and breeding methods for abiotic stresses. These comparisons are useful to understand which pathways or which genes are important for rendering more tolerance to a certain abiotic stress, and to bring forward new ideas for improving the tolerance. The attempt to explain so many abiotic stresses and breeding methods in a book, however, works as both its strength and weakness. The knowledge about only one abiotic stress could not be described in a book, when one considers the broad research done on it in areas such as physiology, genetics, and breeding for tolerance. Therefore, readers should not expect to get in-depth knowledge on each abiotic stress by reading only this book. Another weakness of this book might be that it does not cover several important abiotic stresses (e.g., ultraviolet light and air pollutants), which have serious impacts on crops.
Overall, the authors have done, in this relatively small book, an excellent job explaining physiology and genes involved with abiotic stresses and breeding methods for tolerance. This book will prove to be invaluable for both plant breeders and molecular biologists interested in increasing tolerances to abiotic stresses. It can be used for a textbook by graduate or undergraduate students; the first section can be used in courses related to environmental stresses and the second section can be used in breeding courses. I especially recommend that Chapter 3 be read by all professional researchers and students who want the most up-to-date and brief overview of the tolerance mechanisms for abiotic stresses. Knowledge on abiotic stress tolerance has been rapidly increasing, and I am glad to see the timely publication of this book, which can help us keep up with the pace.
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