Advances and prospects: Biotechnologically improving crop water use efficiency

Abstract

Bio-water saving can be defined as the reduction of crop water consumption employing biological measures. This is the focus of efforts to save water in agriculture. Different levels of water-use efficiency (WUE) have been developed. The genetic diversity of WUE has been confirmed in several crops. WUE is the basis of bio-watering and physiological WUE is the key. The degree to develop physiological WUE potential decides the performance of bio-watering in the field. During this process, fine management is important. Thus bio-watering is closely related to WUE. Crop WUE has improved and evolved as a result of breeding programs. Many WUE genes have been located in different genomic and aneuploid materials and have been mapped by various molecular markers in a number of crops. Two genes, (Erecta and alx8), which control water use efficiency; have been cloned in Arabidopsis thaliana. Eleven WUE genes have been identified by microarray analysis. Six genes associated with drought resistance and photosynthesis have been transfered into crops which have resulted in improving WUE and drought resistance. WUE is important on the basis of functional identification of more drought resistant gene resources. The popularity on the industrial-scale of transgenic plants is still in its infancy and one of the reasons for this is the lack of knowledge regarding molecular mechanisms and it is a very immature technology. Enhanced agricultural practices and the theoretical aspects of improving crop WUE have been developed and are discussed in this review paper. Rapid progress will be made in bio-water savings and that crop WUE can be substantially improved under both favorable and unfavorable water-limited environments. This will be achieved by a combination of traditional breeding techniques and the introduction of modern biotechnology

Keywords::

• Breeding
• crops
• drought tolerance
• genetics
• quantitative trait location (QTL)
• transgenic technology
• water use efficiency

Acknowledgement

This project is supported jointly by The National Basic Research Program of China (2010CB951501), the China National Science & Technology Uphold Plan (2009BADA3B01), One Hundred-Talent Plan of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams, the Important Direction Project of CAS(KZCX2-YW-JC203) and CAS YOUNG SCIENTISTS FELLOWSHIP (2009Y2B211) CAS Science & Technology-guided Special Project (XDA05030404) and The Science & Technology Development Plan (2010GSF10208). We are thankful for the comments from 4 experts and Dr. Inge Russell for the concrete guidance.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.