Droughts produce a complex set of negative economic, environmental, and social impacts across a country or region. Using monthly standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) values, drought characteristics, namely, drought duration, severity, interval time and minimum SPI values, were determined. Two exponential distributions were used to model drought duration and interval time, respectively; gamma ...

The effect of drought on the photosynthetic apparatus of leaves of Salix sp. was studied by measurements of the induction of chlorophyll fluorescence and the capacity for O(2) evolution. Using a multivariate analysis, a model was developed that could predict the degree of drought stress from the data of fluorescence kinetics. Even mild drought stress was detected with high precision; this was n...

Drought is one of the most significant abiotic stresses that influence plant growth and development. Expression analysis revealed that OsNRT1.3, a putative nitrate transporter gene in rice, was induced by drought. To confirm if the OsNRT1.3 promoter can respond to drought stress, a 2019 bp upstream sequence of OsNRT1.3 was cloned. Three OsNRT1.3 promoter fragments were generated by 5'-deletion,...

The dynamics of local climates make development of agricultural strategies challenging. Yield improvement has progressed slowly, especially in drought-prone regions where annual crop production suffers from episodic aridity. Underlying drought responses are circadian and diel control of gene expression that regulate daily variations in metabolic and physiological pathways. To identify transcrip...

Drought is universally acknowledged as a phenomenon associated with scarcity of water. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) expresses the actual rainfall as standardized departure from rainfall probability distribution function. In this study severity and spatial pattern of meteorological drought was analyzed in the Puruliya District, West Bengal, India using multi-temporal SPI. Daily gri...

Drought is one of major environmental determinants of plant growth and productivity. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is a legume perennial forage crop native to the arid and semi-arid environment, which is an ideal candidate to study the biochemical and molecular mechanisms conferring drought resistance in plants. In this study, drought stress responses of two alfalfa varieties, Longdong and Algonqui...

Water deficit is a serious environmental factor limiting the growth and productivity of plants worldwide. Improvement of drought tolerance and efficient water use are significant strategies to overcome this dilemma. In this study, a drought-responsive transcription factor, nuclear factor Y subunit B 7 (PdNF-YB7), induced by osmotic stress (PEG6000) and abscisic acid, was isolated from fast-grow...

We conducted a 6 year field experiment in an evergreen Quercus ilex forest where we simulated the increased drought projected by Global Circulation Models (GCM) and ecophysiological models for the immediate decades. We tested the hypothesis that enhanced drought will change C, N, P, K, Ca, Fe, Mg, Mo and S concentrations of the widespread moss Hypnum cupressiforme Hedw. and its capacity to abso...

Recent researches on long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have expanded our horizon of gene regulation and the cellular complexity. However, the number, characteristics and expression patterns of lncRNAs remain poorly characterized and how these lncRNAs biogenesis are regulated in response to drought stress in cotton are still largely unclear. In the study, using a reproducibility-based RNA-sequencing...

Wheat plants with a fully developed first leaf were subjected to severe but recoverable water stress. Leaves from drought tolerant (Katya and Zlatitza) and drought sensitive (Sadovo and Miziya) varieties in control, drought and recovery conditions were used for the experiments. The physiological response of drought tolerant varieties did not differ from the one of drought sensitive varieties at...