Developing drought-resistant cereals

Part 1 Understanding mechanisms of drought tolerance

1.What is 'drought stress' and what are options to increase crop yield?: Thomas R. Sinclair, North Carolina State University, USA; and Michel E. Ghanem, Centre de coop©ration internationale en recherche agronomique pour le d©veloppement (CIRAD), France and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco;

2.The role of plant hormones in adaptation to drought stress in cereals: Arnauld A. Thiry, Lancaster Environment Centre, UK; Matthew P. Reynolds, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico; and William J. Davies and Ian C. Dodd, Lancaster Environment Centre, UK;

3.Genetics of drought tolerance in cereals: Ambra Viviani, Roberto Tuberosa and Marco Maccaferri, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL) - University of Bologna, Italy;

4.The role of drought-induced proteins in regulating drought tolerance in cereals: Mitiku A. Mengistu and John C. Cushman, University of Nevada - Reno, USA;

Part 2 Techniques for improving resistance

5.Advances in phenotyping to identify drought-resistance traits in cereal roots: John (Jack) Christopher, University of Queensland QAAFI, Australia;

6.Identifying and exploiting genes controlling root system architecture for improving drought tolerance in cereals: Eric S. Ober and Anya Heathcote, NIAB, UK;

7.Identifying and exploiting photosynthetic genes in improving drought resistance in cereals: Weiguo Chen, Daizhen Sun and Runzhi Li, Shanxi Agricultural University, China; and Ruilian Jing, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China;

8.Genomic selection, gene editing and genetic engineering for drought tolerance in cereals: Rodomiro Ortiz, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden;

9.Identifying genes for yield-related traits under drought stress conditions in durum wheat: Ilaria Marcotuli and Agata Gadaleta, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy; Osvin Arriagada, Samantha Reveco and Andr©s R. Schwember, Pontificia Universidad Cat³lica de Chile, Chile; Marco Maccaferri, Matteo Campana and Roberto Tuberosa, University of Bologna, Italy; Christian Alfaro, Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Chile; and Iv¡n Matus, Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Chile;

10.Developing corn hybrids with improved performance under water deficits: Elhan Ersoz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Umbrella Genetics, USA; and Robert J. Bensen, Umbrella Genetics, USA