ABSTRACT
Plant growth and development is a result of the interplay between the genetically governed potential oftheplantandtheplantenvironmentinwhichitgrows(Lewis1976).Therefore,plantperformance isoftenaffectedbyanumberofunfavorableenvironmentalfactors,amongwhichabioticfactorsare ofcrucialimportance.Sinceplantsareimmobile,theysuffermorecomparedtootherorganisms. Thesignicanceofabioticstressescanbeunderstoodfromthefactthattheearth’ssurface,which is 70% salt water and 30% land, possesses only half of its land area free from extremes of water and temperature,andtosoilerosionsordifcultgeography(LewisandChristiansen1981).Theother half that is used for agricultural production has to face a number of abiotic stresses that are consideredtobethemainsourceofyieldreductionsallovertheworld(Boyer1982,CushmanandBohnert 2000).Therecentreportsofclimatechange(IPCC2007,BattistiandNaylor2009)areexpectedto further aggravate the threat of abiotic stresses.
