ABSTRACT
The main abiotic stresses are deficiencies or excesses of water, low or high temperature, deficiencies or excesses of nutrients, high salinity, heavy metals, and other environmental extremes, which are the major causes of poor plant growth and reduced agricultural crop yields around the world. Wild relatives with a good tolerance to abiotic stress are important for plant breeders, especially when a cultivated species has genetic diversity limitations. Excess salt in the soil and water termed as salinity is the most important environmental stress factor which adversely affects agriculture production worldwide. Salinity affects plants through a series of stress events such as water imbalance, ion homeostasis, nutritional disorders, osmotic adjustment, generation of oxidative radicals, membrane disorder, and genotoxicity. The effect of abiotic stress on the stevia plant showed that the physiological traits were more sensitive to salinity stress than the morphological traits.
