Figure 8.
Development of crops with enhanced resilience to abiotic and biotic stress. Crops are exposed to a variety of stresses. Abiotic stresses will intensify as the following climate conditions change: water availability, precipitation, temperatures, and atmospheric CO2 levels. Biotic stressors that plants encounter will vary, but may consist of: bacteria, fungi, oomycetes, nematodes, viruses, and insect pests. As climate change alters environmental conditions and plant-pathogen interactions, strategies to develop more climate-ready and disease-resistant crop varieties include breeding or genome engineering approaches with stacking disease resistance genes, stacking climate tolerance and disease resistance genes, and/or addition of beneficial microbes (see text for examples).