Harnessing genetic and genomic innovations for climate-resilient vegetable crops: A comprehensive Review

Abstract

Climate change has emerged as a critical global challenge, significantly impacting vegetable crop productivity and quality. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the genetic and genomic strategies being employed to develop climate-resilient vegetable crops. By integrating traditional breeding with cutting-edge genomic tools, researchers are unlocking the potential of vegetables to withstand abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, salinity, and extreme weather conditions. This article highlights recent advances in genome sequencing, marker-assisted selection, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, transcriptomics, and phenomics, with case studies from major vegetable crops such as tomato, pepper, eggplant, and brassicas. It also explores the challenges, future directions, and policy implications for deploying these innovations at scale.