Dear Colleagues,

After the successful completion of Volume I of this Special Issue and the great interest in this research topic, we continue with Volume II.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in clarifying the mechanisms of plant adaptation and tolerance against environmental abiotic stress factors. Many researchers have focused their efforts on exploring the resistance of different crop species (including varieties, cultivars, genotypes, hybrids, and others) to different environmental stressors, alone or in combination. These include high light, UV radiation, oxidative stress, drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, heavy metal toxicity, etc. Achieving stable crop production in stressful conditions depends largely on the ability of plants to maintain their functions under environmental stress. One of the methods for improving plants’ tolerance to different abiotic stresses includes the application of exogenous phytoprotectants, which can mitigate their effects on plants.

Plant responses to abiotic stress factors are complex and involve a wide array of morphological, physiological, and biochemical processes. Photosynthesis is the primary physiological process affected by abiotic stresses in all its phases. Photosynthetic membranes are very sensitive to environmental stress, as damage of the photosynthetic apparatus occurs at different levels of its organization: chloroplast ultrastructure as well as pigment, lipid, and protein composition. Therefore, knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in the response and adaptation of the photosynthetic apparatus to stressful conditions is of great importance for a deeper understanding of plant tolerance under abiotic stress, which can support new strategies for the development of climate-resilient crops.

The current Special Issue also draws attention to medicinal plants (herbs) and the effects of drought, salt, light, temperature, and heavy metals on their adaptation mechanisms and secondary metabolite production.

Scientists from all over the world are invited to submit original research and review articles on topics related to crop and medicinal plants’ tolerance to adverse environmental conditions.

Prof. Dr. Anelia Dobrikova
Guest Editor

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• abiotic stress
• adaptation mechanisms
• environmental pollution
• exogenous phytoprotectants
• medicinal plants tolerance
• oxidative stress
• photodamage
• photosynthesis
• photosynthetic apparatus
• phytoprotectants
• plants responses
• reactive oxygen species
• signaling molecules

Title: Yield component are dependent of leaf growth and their performance during drought in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris).
Authors: Gerardo Tapia1; Camila Lozano1; Luis Inostroza1.; Jose Mendez1.
Affiliation: 1Unidad de Recursos genéticos Vegetales, Instituto de investigaciones agropecuarias, INIA-Quilamapu, Chillán, Chile.
Abstract: Water availability for agriculture use is currently a global problem, that it make worse with the climate change in several region of the world. Among legumes species, common bean is the most cultivated. Two main genepool as product of domestication and different races are present. Within the Mesoamerican genepool, Durango and Mesoamerica races contain drought resistant genotypes, while in Andean genepool races such as Chile have been scarcely studied. The Chilean germplasm of common bean is mainly composed by race Chile but it also includes other hybridized landraces that had exhibited suitable agronomical performance under low soil water availability. Here, we analyzed the drought tolerance of nine ancient Chilean varieties. Plants were growth in optimal (OW) and restricted watering (RW) condition. The drought treatment was stablished during flowering until grain pod. The results showed that the leaf/canopy temperature was increased significantly under RW treatment relative to OW, while the chlorophyll content was in general decreased. Phenological traits such as flowering time, days to pod, and days to mature grain exhibited significant differences among common bean varieties. Among them, Pinto was the earliest variety, while Coscorron was the latest. Grain yield was reduced severely during RW, reaching 38-60% of reduction relative to OW. This reduction was positively correlated with the reduction of pod number. At the same time, the number of seeds by pod was reduced 22% in average under RW, relative to OW. However, the 100 seeds weight was not modified by water treatment. Additionally, the grain yield reduction was negatively correlated with the rate of growth reduction (r2=0.84; P<0.001). Our results allowed to concluded that Chilean landraces are variable in the mechanism to drought resistance. The partition between leaf growth rate and grain pod is disbalanced during drought, where the varieties with higher yield have also a higher inhibition of leaf growth. Additionally, we suggest an additive negative-effect of temperature on productivity of common bean under drought conditions, which affects pod number, number of seed by pod and finally grain yield.