1/6/12, 15:17

Drought tolerance through biotechnology: improving translation from the laboratory to farmers’ fields

El estrés hídrico es uno de los factores que limita seriamente la producción agrícola. Varias estrategias y genes fueron utilizados en eventos transgénicos persiguiendo este propósito. En esta revisión se destacan los eventos más avanzados de la biotecnología y también los nuevos genes candidatos reportados con la tolerancia al estrés que se ha demostrado en los cultivos en los últimos 3 anos. Se discuten las estrategias para pasar de la demostración de la tolerancia a la sequía en un ambiente controlado al desarrollo de cultivos tolerantes a la sequía en condiciones de campo.

Jill Deikman, Marie Petracek and Jacqueline E Heard

Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 23: 243–250 (2012)

 

Water availability is a significant constraint to crop production, and increasing drought tolerance of crops is one step to gaining greater yield stability. Excellent progress has been made using models to identify pathways and genes that can be manipulated through biotechnology to improve drought tolerance. A current focus is on translation of results from models in controlled environments to crops in the field. Field testing to demonstrate improved yields under water-limiting conditions is challenging and expensive. More extensive phenotyping of transgenic lines in the greenhouse may contribute to improved predictions about field performance. It is possible that multiple mechanisms of drought tolerance may be needed to provide benefit across the diversity of water stress environments relevant to economic yield.