Guest Author: Mr. Harsh Vardhan Bhagchandka, President, IPL Biologicals
19 March 2025, New Delhi: Crop stress, caused by both abiotic and biotic factors, poses a growing and urgent threat to global agriculture and food security. Abiotic stress, which includes environmental challenges like heat, drought, and temperature extremes, severely affects crop yields. On the other hand, biotic stress refers to the damage caused by living organisms, such as pathogens, fungi, bacteria, and viruses, which can also drastically reduce productivity.
Together, these stressors are increasingly disrupting agricultural output, a situation that is worsened by the ongoing effects of climate change. By the year 2030, heat stress could devastate as much as 46 million hectares of crucial crops, including maize, beans, wheat, and potatoes, leading to significant declines in yield. This scenario is not a distant possibility; it represents an urgent crisis. The contrast between heat-resistant crops like sorghum and cassava and the vulnerability of many essential crops underscores the gravity of the situation.
Drought, another abiotic stress, is equally harsh. This accounts for more than 34 percent of agricultural and livestock losses in developing nations, depleting water facilities, disrupting economies, and costing many farmers their financial stability. Biological factors such as fungi, bacteria, and viruses add to the challenge, resulting in global farming losses of 20%–40% every year. Together, these dynamics create a worst-case scenario that progressively increases the frequency of extreme weather events and disease outbreaks, posing an existential threat to global food security.
What actions should be taken?
Neglecting these interrelated concerns invites catastrophe. The resolution requires a comprehensive and assertive approach. Agricultural innovation must be central to the approach. An effective strategy is using beneficial microbes—rhizobacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, and endophytes—to enhance crop resilience. These bacteria function by augmenting nutrient uptake, optimising water efficiency, and strengthening plants against illnesses. They embody a sustainable, nature-based approach, especially in resource-constrained regions where conventional interventions may be inadequate.
Concurrently, advancements in biotechnology—through genetic modification and precision agriculture—facilitate the creation of crops that exhibit enhanced stress management, including heat tolerance and disease resistance. Integrating biological and technology solutions can alleviate the effects of crop stress, hence fostering more resilient and sustainable agricultural systems in the future. To properly comprehend the possibilities of these developments, it is essential to first grasp the fundamental principles of biotic and abiotic stress.
The Influence of Biotic and Abiotic Stress on Crop Productivity and Yield
Abiotic stressors significantly diminish global crop yields, with drought being a primary factor that restricts plant water absorption, impairing processes such as photosynthesis, nutrient transport, and cellular activity. This disruption often leads to stunted growth or plant mortality, which is further compounded by thermal stress at crucial phases like flowering, reducing pollen viability and seed production. Adding to this complexity, salinity exacerbates the issue by restricting water absorption even in soils that are adequately irrigated, thus severely compromising plant vitality. Thus, these abiotic stresses significantly reduce worldwide agricultural yield.
Additionally, biotic stressors including fungal infections (e.g., Fusarium spp.), bacterial illnesses (e.g., Xanthomonas spp.) and insect infestations (e.g., aphids) lower agricultural output. They also harm plant tissues, deplete nutrients, and open up paths for subsequent infections. This leads to 20-40% productivity losses, depending on specific diseases and prevailing climatic circumstances.
In order to mitigate both abiotic and biotic stress, breeding efforts develop crop types that are drought-tolerant, heat-resistant and salt-tolerant. This, in turn, allows plants to better endure environmental challenges. Mulching, regulated watering and soil enrichment are key agronomic approaches for stress management that enhance crop vitality. On the biotic front, integrated pest management (IPM) strategies like adopting resistant crops, biological control agents and crop rotation help in reducing insect damage while assuring more stable harvests.
On the other hand, biological agents like biocontrol chemicals, biofertilisers and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) contribute effectively to stress management. PGPR improves nutrient absorption and infection resistance while also helping plants tolerate abiotic conditions like drought and salt. Furthermore, biological fungicides and insecticides provide long-term alternatives to conventional treatments while decreasing environmental harm and regulating pests. Mycorrhizal fungi can boost plant health by encouraging root development, which increases water and nutrient uptake—particularly in drought-prone or saline locations.
Addressing Heat Stress
Advancements in genetic engineering have resulted in the creation of heat-tolerant crops, such as wheat and rice, utilising methods like marker-assisted breeding and the incorporation of heat shock proteins (HSPs). These proteins are essential in averting plant overheating and alleviating oxidative stress induced by elevated temperatures. Agronomic measures, like the utilisation of shade nets, reflective mulch, and soil conservation, bolster crop resilience by lowering temperatures and improving water retention, thereby allowing plants to withstand excessive heat.
Moreover, the cultivation of drought-resistant crop cultivars enhances plant vitality during thermal stress. Digital tools, especially remote sensing technology, provide enhanced assistance to farmers by facilitating real-time crop monitoring via sensors, drones, and moisture detectors, so aiding in the more effective management of heat stress. In conjunction with these technical and agronomic solutions, microbial innovations utilising soil microorganisms and endophytes enhance plant resilience to heat by strengthening cell structure and activating stress-response mechanisms. Microbial inoculants enhance plant health by improving nutrient utilisation, stimulating growth, and augmenting resistance to heat, drought, and disease.
Stress Mitigation During Drought
Enhancements in crop genetics aimed at developing drought-resistant cultivars are becoming increasingly essential. Genomic selection and transgenic crops that express drought-resistant characteristics, such as osmotic regulators, have demonstrated considerable potential. Drought-resistant maize cultivars, particularly those grown in arid regions of Africa, are enhancing yields.
Strategies for Water Conservation:
Mulching, a proven technique that minimises surface evaporation, effectively conserves soil moisture in arid areas. In addition, rainwater collection systems allow for saving water while there is a surplus for future use during dry seasons.
Precision Irrigation, a combination of soil moisture sensing instruments, data analysis, and automated irrigation systems that leads to better water delivery while decreasing the amounts wasted. The use of enhanced irrigation systems is seen as an important approach to reduce water expenditure in countries with scanty water supply.
Microbial Interventions for Managing Biotic and Abiotic Stress
Recent breakthroughs in microbial research are revolutionising agriculture by providing sustainable ways to improve crop productivity and address biotic stress. Due to escalating worries regarding chemical pesticide resistance and environmental damage, microbial treatments are emerging as pivotal in the evolution of agriculture.
Cultural controls such as crop rotation, sanitation, and the utilisation of resistant plant types have historically been vital measures for mitigating soil-borne pathogens and diminishing disease transmission. When combined with microbial treatments, these approaches generate a potent synergy that enhances crop health and productivity. Beneficial microorganisms, like Trichoderma spp. and Pseudomonas species, are increasingly pivotal in biological management, providing natural defence against detrimental fungal infections and enhancing plant growth. These biocontrol chemicals inhibit pathogenic bacteria, enabling plants to flourish and give greater outputs, whilst decreasing dependence on detrimental chemical pesticides.
In conjunction with biological management, biotechnology advancements such as CRISPR gene editing are employed to enhance plant resistance to pathogens. These technologies enhance crops’ resistance to diseases by precisely editing plant genomes, hence increasing agricultural resilience to fluctuating environmental conditions. Furthermore, biofertilisers, comprising advantageous bacteria, augment nutrient accessibility in the soil, stimulate root growth, and raise soil vitality. This thus enhances crop resilience, resulting in augmented yield over time.
The influence of these microbial solutions on agricultural yield is significant. Microorganisms enhance nutrient absorption, guaranteeing that plants obtain the essential nutrients required for growth. Biocontrol products enhance yields by mitigating crop loss due to disease. Additionally, specific microbial strains enhance plant tolerance to abiotic conditions, including drought and salinity, hence increasing resilience and yield. These microbial advancements not only improve agricultural yields but also promote environmental sustainability by diminishing the necessity for chemical inputs.
To summarise, there is no other solution to the current paradox of food insecurity: we must combine genetics, agronomy, and microbial science to address the challenges posed by crop stress. Both biotechnology and digital agriculture are not a choice but a requirement for resilient crops, water conservation, and pest eradication. Climate change aggravating food insecurity requires us to proactively accept a multifaceted and powerful approach to handling crop stress, or risk facing a global crisis.
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