Physiology of Crop Yield Under Heat Stress

With the rising climatological extremities, heat stress is a major concern towards sustainable crop yield and productivity as it adversely affects the normal growth and physiology of the crop plants. Continuously increasing global temperature due to climate change leads to a significant loss in crop yield due to negative effects on major plant physiological processes. In order to devise the strategies to minimize the yield penalty due to high-temperature stress, it is imperative to understand the crop developmental and physiological responses to heat stress. In this chapter, we outline how plants sense the fluctuations in the temperature, focusing on the thermosensors and the sensing mechanisms that have been discovered till now. We discuss the effects of heat stress at different developmental stages impairing the normal growth of plants. We assess the impact of elevated temperatures on major physiological processes affecting net carbon assimilation, membrane stability, and water balance. Towards the end, we also highlight the alterations in the levels of phytohormones and their influence on plants for acquiring thermotolerance.