QTL Mapping for Drought Stress Tolerance in Plants

Drought tolerance is a significant quantitative trait with many phenotypes and is often complicated by plant phenology. Different types of environmental stresses, such as high irradiance, high temperature, nutrition deficiencies and toxicity, may challenge crops at the same time; therefore, the cultivation of drought resistance is very complicated. Interdisciplinary researchers have been trying to use various methods to analyze and understand the mechanisms of plant tolerance to drought stress. However, the limited success of molecular breeding and physiological approaches suggests that we need to rethink our strategies. Recent genetic techniques and genomics tools, coupled with advances in breeding methods and precise phenotypes, are likely to reveal candidate genes and metabolic pathways for drought tolerance in crops. In order to update the analysis methods of drought resistance, this chapter reviewed the latest research progress on precise phenotypes of plant physiology in response to drought. Finally, according to the physiological/morphological and molecular mechanism of drought-resistant parent lines, a strategy of selecting specific environment and making suitable germplasm adapt to the environment was proposed. This chapter mainly involves use of quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis for traits that are related to drought stress. In this article, we briefly review the available literature on QTL analyses in wheat for traits, which respond to drought/water stress. The outlook for future research in this area and the possible approaches for utilizing the available information on genetics of drought tolerance for wheat breeding are also discussed.