Climate change and frequent droughts are assumedly one of the major constraints in crop production in the near future. Crop productivity has crucial threats from increasing environmental stresses and disruptions in the water and nutrient regimes. Drought reduces crop production and causes rapid soil erosion, with long-lasting effects on the soil microbiota. This also instigates environmental degradation under stressful conditions, increasing the soil microorganisms’ role in the regulation of plant adaptability. In combating deleterious consequences of drought, the creation of new strategies for crop development is a challenging task because of the complexity of plant stress tolerance mechanisms. New technologies have emerged to enhance the drought resistance in crop plants and minimize the negative impact of water-deficit conditions. Selection of highly productive and drought-resistant crop cultivars, using integrative genetics, molecular biology, and microbiological approaches offers promising opportunities to mitigate the adverse effects of drought stress. The following review presents state-of-the-art biotechnological strategies and solutions based on recent advances in transgenic plant breeding, seed preparation, and the use of superabsorbent hydrogels as soil conditioners for sustainable crop production under arid conditions.
Biotechnology, climate change, drought stress, microbiological approaches, seed priming, hydrogels, transgenic plants
Drought is an environmental stress factor that affects crop plants at various phases and eventually negatively impacts the plant’s metabolism, growth, development, and yield. The strategies to overcome drought effects are now intensively evolving. Therefore, the future research should address reproducible experiments under field conditions and the development of optimized protocols for commercialization of these new techniques.