Sustainable Remedies for Abiotic Stress in Cereals

Abstract

The world population is increasing rapidly, and this exponential growth not merely increased food contamination that is wreaking havoc on our food system and agricultural outputs. This chapter intendedly provides a detailed and thorough overview of biostimulants with regard to heavy metal tolerance in cereals production. Nowadays, cereals especially wheat, maize, rice, and barley plants supply most people's basic energy needs. Either because of the soil parent material or due to the chemicals used, those major plants grown across a vast region, hence, are more susceptible to metal(loid) (Cd, Cu, Cr, Fe, Ni, Pb, Zn, As, and Sb) accumulation. The toxicity effects through damaging various physiological (pigmentation, chlorophyll, and photosynthetic process), morphological (seed germination and crop growth), and metabolic processes (protein and enzymes degradation, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and lipid peroxidation). Also, toxic metals can lead to the extinction of species and varieties of biostimulant microorganisms in the soil. On the other hand, plants are fortified with antioxidants (catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutathione reductase (GR), proline, phenolics phytochelatins (PC), and metallothioneins (MT)) to combat and segregate these aberrations that induced by heavy metals. Consequently, food safety from metal contamination by utilizing environmentally friendly goods or novel farming practices is among the primary goal of modern agriculture. Biostimulants are one of the unique inventions that have the potential to enhance crop tolerance in addition; they also possess many beneficial effects on both soil and crops, especially when faced with environmental constraints such as heavy metals. Biostimulants are compounds, one or more metabolites, or metabolic fusion and microbes that, when introduced to crops, improve plant defense abilities. Thus, the aim of this study is to better understand the metal toxicity and damage in cereals as well as how this phytotoxicity could be reduced by biostimulant integration. The insights presented here are indeed projected to support cereal producers and, as a result, enhance crop output effectively in a metal stressed environment. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022