Fighting Drought: A Mini Review with Special Reference to Tropical Palms

Drought stress is the most important environmental stress which affects negatively on plant growth and productivity. With the climate change and the scarcity of water, drought conditions have become frequent and prominent, affecting the agricultural production worldwide. Therefore, breeding crops for drought tolerance has gained significant attention at present. To cope with drought, plants possess different mechanisms and understanding their biological significance would enable the utilization of these mechanisms in crop improvement for drought tolerance. Therefore, in the current review an effort has been made to compile the information related to drought tolerance mechanisms and drought resistant/tolerant crop improvement with special reference to tropical palm tree species.