Impact of abiotic stress and its mitigation strategies in millet: A review

Abstract

Millets are highly resilient, climate-smart crops that play a crucial role in global food security, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. However, abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, high temperatures, and nutrient deficiencies significantly causes global crop loss, lowering the averaging yield of the majority crops by more than 50% by affecting their growth and productivity. More development is required to make millets more robust to the unprecedented effects of climate change and related environmental stresses, even if they are tolerant of the majority of abiotic stresses, such as drought and high temperatures. Adding stress tolerance characteristics to millets will increase their output in marginal areas and aid in addressing the upcoming food scarcity brought on by climate change. This review explores the impact of abiotic stress on millet production and discusses various mitigation strategies, including conventional breeding, biotechnological interventions, and agronomic practices.