ABSTRACT
Fundamentally, plants require energy (light), water, carbon and mineral nutrients for growth. Abiotic stress can be defined as the negative impact of environmental factors on the organisms in a specific situation. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs in multiple ways and interdependent, and its impact varies across the sectors of agriculture. Unlike a biotic stress that would include living disturbances such as fungi or harmful insects, abiotic stress factors or stressors are naturally occurring, often intangible, factors such as intense sunlight or wind that may cause harm to the plants. Plants are especially dependent on environmental factors, so it is particularly constraining. The most common of the stressors are easy to identify, but there are many other, less recognizable abiotic stress factors that affect environments constantly. The abiotic stresses like temperature (heat, cold chilling/frost), water (drought, flooding/hypoxia), radiation (UV, ionizing radiation), chemicals (mineral/nutrient deficiency/excess, pollutants heavy metals/pesticides, gaseous toxins), mechanical (wind, soil movement, submergence) are responsible for major reduction in agricultural production. The lesser-known stressors generally occur on a smaller scale and so are less noticeable; they include poor edaphic conditions like physical and physico-chemical properties, high radiation, compaction, contamination, rapid dehydration during seed germination, etc.
