Abstract
Constant climate changes, high fluctuations in weather conditions, extremely low rainfall, and enormous drought conditions are attracting significant consideration in today’s world. Drought stress is one of the challenging abiotic stresses to agricultural fields and the environment. It affects plant physiology by delaying cell division, decreasing CO2 assimilation, water potential in leaves, plant water status, photosynthetic pigment, closing stomata, and other biochemical processes. To antagonize the drought condition, plants develop different mechanisms through different physiological and biochemical processes. Silicon (Si), as a multi-talented element, shows great performance in alleviating drought conditions in plants. Despite being a non-essential element, its role in stress tolerance is recommendable. Multiple effects of Si in mitigating water-deficit conditions through different mechanisms of action were presented in the chapter. Moreover, this chapter comprehends on different physiological, morphological, biochemical, and molecular aspects of plants dealing with drought stress. Appli-cation of Si has an important and notable effect on increasing plant tolerance to drought conditions by regulating homeostasis, osmoprotectant, antioxidant enzymes related to a defense mechanism, reducing transpiration, enhancing compatible solutes, increasing uptake of water by roots, nutrient balancing, and many more. In addition, modulation in gene expression, phytohormone synthesis, activation of different defense-related mechanisms by acting as a signaling molecule, improving the water status of the plants under drought-stress situations, and increasing the production and growth of the plants are some other facts of Si. Si also enhances plant resistance to particular stress conditions by altering the expression of stress-related genes in plants. So, this chapter helps in understand-ing the multidimensional role of Si in drought-stressed plants via different alleviation mechanisms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Salinity and Drought Tolerance in Plants |
| Subtitle of host publication | Physiological Perspectives |
| Publisher | Springer Singapore |
| Pages | 437-463 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789819946693 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789819946686 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.
Keywords
- Antioxidant enzymes
- Drought stress
- Silicon
- Stress tolerance
- Water uptake
