Genomics and molecular physiology for improvement of drought tolerance in wheat.

Abstract This chapter discusses the complexity of drought tolerance in wheat focusing the morphological, biochemical, physiological and molecular responses. The breeding approaches, such as traditional and genomics-assisted strategies, for drought tolerance in wheat are described. Future perspectives are also mentioned. Before wheat genome sequencing, it was very difficult to dissect drought tolerance genomic regions because of large genome size and repetitive sequences. But with the availability of sequencing approaches, a large number of genomic resources has become available which extend the scope of utilization of advanced genomics approaches such as GWAM and GS, MutMap+, etc. A new genome editing approach, the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPRassociated protein 9 (Cas9) system, can also be utilized for enhancement of drought tolerance in wheat. Therefore, integration of genomic approaches with precise phenotyping is the need of the hour for improving drought tolerance in wheat.