An indica pyramiding line, DK151, and its recurrent parent, IR64, were evaluated under drought stress and non-stress conditions for three consecutive seasons. DK151 showed significantly improved tolerance to drought. The DNA methylation changes in DK151 and IR64 under drought stress and subsequent recovery were assessed using methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism analysis. Our results in...

Drought is a major constraint to crop production, and microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in plant drought tolerance. Analysis of miRNAs and other classes of small RNAs (sRNAs) in barley grown under water and drought conditions reveals that drought selectively regulates expression of miRNAs and other classes of sRNAs. Low-expressed miRNAs and all repeat-associated siRNAs (rasiRNAs) tended...

Stress-inducible genes undergo epigenetic modifications under stress conditions. To investigate if HSP17, of which transcripts accumulate in plant cells under stress, is regulated through epigenetic mechanisms under drought stress, 5-day-old barley (Hordeum vulgare cv. Carina) plants were subjected to progressive drought through water withholding for 22 days. Changes in physiological status and...

The objective of this research was to analyse whether ameliorating drought stress through exogenously applied spermine (Spm) was related to carbohydrate metabolism, dehydrins accumulation and the transcription of genes encoding dehydrins in two white clovers (drought-susceptible cv. 'Ladino' and drought-resistant cv. 'Haifa') under controlled drying conditions for 10 days. The results show that...

The increased occurrence and severity of drought stress have led to a high yield decline in rice in recent years in drought-affected areas. Drought research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) over the past decade has concentrated on direct selection for grain yield under drought. This approach has led to the successful development and release of 17 high-yielding drought-toleran...

Climate change is affecting every aspect of human activities, especially the agriculture. In China, extreme drought events caused by climate change have posed a great threat to food safety. In this work we aimed to study the drought risk of maize in the farming–pastoral ecotone in Northern China based on physical vulnerability assessment. The physical vulnerability curve was constructed from th...

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) is a widely used warm-season turfgrass and one of the most drought tolerant species. Dissecting the natural variation in drought tolerance and physiological responses will bring us powerful basis and novel insight for plant breeding. In the present study, we evaluated the natural variation of drought tolerance among nine bermudagrass varieties by measuring physio...

Drought stress is one of the major abiotic stresses in agriculture worldwide. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of drought stress on chlorophyll content, photosynthesis and transpiration, stomatal conductance and yield characteristics in two varieties of tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum). A pot experiment with three irrigation regimes was carried out in a split-plot blo...

To understand molecular mechanisms of perennial grass adaptation to drought stress, genes associated with drought avoidance or tolerance traits were identified and their expression patterns were characterized in C4 hybrid bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.×C. transvaalensis Burtt Davy, cv. Tifway] and common bermudagrass (C. dactylon, cv. C299). Plants of drought-tolerant 'Tifway' and dr...

The present paper focused on the analysis of drought in the Heihe River basin based on daily precipitation data observed at 13 weather stations covered from 1961 to 2010. The spatial and temporal variation of drought was estimated by means of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), linear regression analysis and inverse distance weighted analysis. The SPI series on 1-month, 3-month, 6-month...