Resistance to abiotic stresses

Unfavourable soil and water conditions are important constraints and lower crop yields. The adaptive response of plants to water and salt stress involves the activation of a large number of genes. The individual function of these genes is not well understood in as much as most of the genes are not specific to these types of stresses.36 The number of plants that have been engineered for salt or drought resistance is therefore very limited. However, a yeast salt-tolerance gene encoding a water-soluble protein HAL1 has been transferred to two cultivars of Cucumis melo via A. tumefaciens. Some halotolerance has been observed in primary transformants37 that could be transmitted to self-pollinated progeny.38