ABSTRACT
Rice is one of the major crops with noteworthy share in food grain production globally. However, most of the cultivated rice varieties are glycophytic. With the prompt increase in primary rice consumers and the abating soil and water quality in the rice cultivation fields, there is a need to comprehend the adaptive response of this important crop toward hyper saline environments. With the eventual objective to raise rice plant with better suitability toward soil salinity, rigorous efforts are on worldwide commissioning physiological, biochemical, and molecular tools to accomplish this task. Despite several studies, our knowledge on the salt stress response mechanisms associated with rice is imperfect due to high complexity of responses, including ionic and an osmotic component, triggering many morphological, physiological and metabolic deviations coupled with oxidative damages. Though the generated information regarding salinity responses in rice is far from complete, but there are substantial evidences covering the salinity-induced responses on cells, tissues, organs, and whole plant levels. Hence, along with potent biotechnological advancement, particularly in post-genomic era, this
information can be employed efficiently for improvement of rice for better salinity tolerance and yield. Biotechnological tools such as manipulating direct/indirect action genes and non-coding RNAs present sound platforms for developing salt-tolerant rice cultivars. Besides, the omics approached especially transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics technologies are emerging avenues to develop new rice varieties to combat salinity burden with increment in yield. This chapter presents a description of the recent applications of biotechnological tools in improvement of salt tolerance in rice varieties followed by reviewing attempts by crop biotechnologists and breeders which will help to enlighten the different avenues for better crop production in saline lands leading to fulfillment of global food requirements.
