Vol. 8, Issue 10 (2019)

Author(s):
Rinchan Dolkar, Anupama and Ashok Busti

Abstract:
High temperature (HT) stress is a major environmental stress that limits plant growth, metabolism, and productivity worldwide. Plant growth and development involve numerous biochemical reactions that are sensitive to temperature. Plant responses to HT vary with the degree and duration of HT and the plant type. The adverse effects of heat stress can be mitigated by developing crop plants with improved thermotolerance using various genetic approaches. For this purpose, however, a thorough understanding of various responses of plants to high temperature, mechanisms is imperative. High temperature may adversely affect photosynthesis, respiration, water relations and membrane stability, and also modulate levels of hormones and primary and secondary metabolites. Furthermore, throughout plant ontogeny, enhanced expression of a variety of heat shock proteins, other stress-related proteins, and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) constitute major plant responses to heat stress. The crop survival under HT stress depends on the ability to perceive the high temperature stimulus, generate and transmit the signal, and initiate appropriate physiological and biochemical changes. In this chapter response of different vegetable crops to heat stress are reviewed.