Summary
This review synthesises current and emerging approaches to breeding drought-tolerant crops in response to climate change impacts on global water availability and agricultural productivity. The authors propose an integrated 'OGS trio' framework combining omics integration, genetic engineering, and speed breeding as a transformative strategy for developing resilient crops capable of maintaining yields under drought stress. The synthesis addresses urgent food security needs for a growing global population whilst acknowledging the direct and indirect economic costs of drought to agricultural systems.
Regional applicability
The findings are globally relevant, including to United Kingdom agriculture where changing precipitation patterns and increasing drought frequency pose emerging challenges to crop productivity. The proposed framework would be applicable to UK breeding programmes seeking to develop climate-resilient varieties, though implementation details would need adaptation to UK cropping systems, growing seasons, and regulatory frameworks for genetic engineering.
Key measures
Drought stress tolerance mechanisms; crop breeding methodologies; application of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics; genome editing; machine learning in phenotyping
Outcomes reported
The paper reviews approaches to developing drought-tolerant crops through advanced breeding and genetic technologies. It proposes an integrated framework combining omics-assisted breeding, genetic engineering, and speed breeding to accelerate crop improvement under drought stress.
Topic tags
Dig deeper with Pulse AI.
Ask about this record, its theme or its relevance to UK farming and policy. Pulse AI uses selected catalogue evidence and cites the sources it draws on.