Crop Yield

Plants, being sessile and autotrophic in nature, must cope with challenging environmental aberrations and therefore have evolved various responsive or defensive mechanisms including stress sensing mechanisms, antioxidant system, signaling pathways, secondary metabolites biosynthesis, and other defensive pathways among which accumulation of osmolytes or osmo-protectants is an important phenomenon.

Crop plants growing under field conditions are constantly exposed to various abiotic and biotic stress factors leading to decreased yield and quality of produce. In order to achieve sustainable development in agriculture and to increase agricultural production for feeding an increasing global population, it is necessary to use ecologically compatible and environmentally friendly strategies to decrease the adverse effects of stresses on the plant. Selenium is one of the critical elements from the biological contexts because it is essential for human health; however, it becomes toxic at high concentrations. It has been widely reported that selenium can promote plant growth and alleviate various stresses as well as increase the quantity and quality of the yield of many plant species.

This book discusses the importance of the potato plant and examines ways to increase its production and develop new cultivars resistant to stress factors via conventional and biotechnological methods.

This volume explores specific approaches that have shown to result in crop yield increases. Research on the physiological understanding of these methods has led to the development of practical applications of plant breeding approaches to genetically improve crops to achieve higher yields. Authoritative entries f

Cash crops are grown and sold for monetary gain and not necessarily for sustenance. They include coffee, tea, coconut, cotton, jute, groundnut, castor, linseed, cocoa, rubber, cassava, soybean, sweet potato, potato, wheat, corn and teff. While some of these crops have been improved for realizing yield potential, breeding of many of them is still in infancy. Crops that underwent rigorous breeding have eventually lost much of the diversity due to extensive cultivation with a few improved varieties and the diversity in less bred species is to be conserved.

Soil and crop sensing is a fundamental component and the first important step in precision agriculture. Unless the level of soil and crop variability is known, appropriate management decisions cannot be made and implemented. In the last few decades, various ground-based sensors have been developed to measure spatial variability in soil properties and nutrients, crop growth and yield, and pest conditions. Remote sensing as an important data collection tool has been increasingly used to map soil and crop growth variability as spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions of image data have improved significantly in recent years.