Background of Project

Increase in agricultural productivity has to out-pace the rate of growth in population. This has to happen given all the adverse abiotic and biotic stress factors existing today and likely to emerge with climate change. Genetic enhancement based on discovery and use of novel genes has been the key in meeting the demands of food for feeding the ever-increasing population. The dwarfing genes in wheat and rice, and rust resistance genes in wheat are some of the most prominent examples, which stand testimony to the power of genetic technology that ushered in green revolution and subsequently helped sustaining the productivity gains. The conventional methods of genetic enhancement however have certain limitations including incompatibility barriers among different species. With the advent of new biotechnological tools and techniques, it has been possible to access genes from diverse biological systems and deploy them in target species. This has made the whole living world a single gene pool. Use of crystal protein genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis in genetic engineering of crops like cotton clearly depicts how genes from evolutionarily distant organisms can bring new revolution in agricultural production. Several other genes have also been prospected, validated and are being deployed to gain commercial advantage. This sub-project aims to prospect for novel genes and mine new alleles of known genes for abiotic stress tolerance from the unified gene pool cutting across taxa and phyla and functionally validate them for future deployment to enhance and sustain agricultural productivity.