ABSTRACT
Woody plants, unlike herbaceous annual plants, are more often exposed to various biotic and abiotic stresses due to their perennial characteristics. Abiotic and biotic stresses, such as salinity, drought, oxidative stress, wounding and pathogen attack, are serious threats to plant growth development, causing reduced yield and quality in many plants including woody species. Abiotic and biotic stresses lead to a series of physiological, morphological, biochemical and molecular changes in plants. In general, multiple stresses can initially reduce source photosynthetic activity by both stomatal and non-stomatal factors in woody plants. The strategies woody plants have adopted to respond to multiple stresses are often coordinated and fine-tuned by regulating molecular activities. Soluble sugars, especially sucrose, glucose and fructose, play a distinctly central role in maintaining plant structure and metabolism at the cellular and/or whole plant level. Continuous water deficit or drought stress is one of the most important factors affecting plant growth, development, survival and crop productivity.
