Climate change is over shadowing the life of the poor and continue to do so in the future as well. Sustainable agriculture is at risk specially when the farmers are poor and the technology of crop production is at its infancy. Under such circumstances, I think that breeding approaches should address local dynamism in light of existing problems, conditions and farming system at grass root level.
rather than tissue culture I would suggest introduction of varieties and then selection
tissue culture could be tried after the first round of selected cultivars are in full operation
and go for hardcore physiological drought tolerant traits in the first go of selection
Dear Yehuala,
the simple and easiest approach is to select drought prone areas in the country of studies, travel there and look for same crops that thrives well there, such crops would have been already adopted or modified itself naturally to resist the drought. If search areas or crops do not exist, you can try getting it from neighboring countries with the right quarantine practices to research on them and then try them. The most expensive way is the GMO approach, by selecting the drought tolerance gene from a desert plant into the gene pool of the crop you are trying to improve.
Take Care
I think the appropriate approach is to look for all those lines which are having waxy and narrow leaves, deep roots system and low rate of transpiration so it will be better acclimatize there.
I personally, think that the strategy should follow on screening of accessions from a wide range of germplasm pool (from known wet and dry geographical regions), and then selection of a handful of accessions based on some selected shoot and root traits such as canopy temperature, stomatal conductance, root dry mass etc and conducting further phenotyping test for in depth analysis.
I come to learn that accessions that close their stomata early tend to be less productive (I think our ultimate goal is relatively good yield) and they are risk averting. But, those accessions that maintain their tissue water status by osmotic adjustment and vigorous root growth ensure relatively better stomatal conductance and carbon assimilation, and exhibit better yielding ability under limited water condition. Hence, selection of accessions that combine deep root system and reduction of osmotic potential under drought condition can be good candidates for breeding of drought avoiding cultivars in dry Sub-Saharan agriculture.
Breeding for shade tolerant crops. This way agroforestry practices such as Tree Based Intercropping can be used to mitigate negative impacts of climate change.
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