An environmental perturbation such as drought, salinity, chilling, freezing and high temperatures can influence plant growth and, inturn, can prove detrimental to enduring agriculture (Slama et al, 2014). Such kind of environmental disturbance encountered by the plant in field or in vitro is referred to as abiotic stress.Under such conditions, plants advancingly experience altered or abnormal cellular and whole plant processes just to achieve the right conditions for survival (Fitter and Hay, 1981). These fluctuating environmental factors bring alterations in a plant at morphological, physiological, biochemical, metabolic and molecular level i.e. bringing the plant under ‘stress’ (Pedranzani et al, 2015). …show more content…
In field conditions, a plant gets exposed to a combination of different abiotic stresses (Boyer 1982, Ahuja et al 2010, Atkinson &Urwin 2012).these exposures can retard or defer a growth and development of a plant, can decrease its productivity and in an extreme case cause its death. (Krasensky & jonak 2011). Hence, abiotic stress can affect agronomic yield drastically, e.g. Solanum tuberosum (Potato), a global food crop, ranking fourth among others (Farhad et al 2011) is sensitive to water deficit stress (Opena and Porter, 1999) which can reduce the tuber yield of the crop dramatically. Abiotic stress can be in different forms like high salt stress (Salinity stress), low temperature stress (Cold stress), high temperature stress (Thermal stress), water deficit stress (Drought …show more content…
This act of defence adopted by a plant in view of harsh environmental changes is termed as stress tolerance. Tolerance of a plant to low temperatures ranging from 0-15 0C without any loss of function is termed as chilling tolerance (Somerville, 1995). Another aspect is cold acclimation which may be defined as heightened endurance of a plant to the physical and physicochemical antics of freezing stress (Thomashow, 1999).In response to cold stress, a plant experiences a stress that inturn induces many changes not only at cellular level but also at molecular level such as the expression of anti-freeze proteins (Wang et al., 2006). Low temperature stress leads to alteration in the functioning of a plant in two ways: in first instance a plant tries to maintain its cellular metabolism in response to cold stress.This is achieved by the activation of regulatory pathways that revive normal functioning of various enzymes and proteins to ensure normal metabolic functioning.