Preface

Wheat is an important food crop grown on 30% of land occupied by cereal crops worldwide. Currently, it feeds about 40% of the global population. The production of wheat is affected by various factors including drought, salinity, water logging, and trends in urbanization. This book discusses strategies to increase wheat yield under adverse conditions. Developing biotic and abiotic stress-tolerant wheat plants may lead to improved production. This book discusses diverse aspects of wheat. It contains five sections.

Section 1 includes an introductory chapter that presents an overview of recent developments for the improvement of wheat. Section 2 describes various diseases of wheat as well as its insect pests. It also describes strategies to develop better plants with biotic stress tolerance. Section 3 presents the latest information on various approaches to developing abiotic stress-tolerant wheat plants. The chapters in this section contain advanced research accomplishments in the field related to drought and salinity. Climate change is the special focus of this section. Section 4 contains chapters on modern and innovative techniques in wheat improvement. The chapters discuss technologies like genome editing and genomics. Section 5 focuses on grain quality and value-added products obtained from the wheat crop.

I would like to thank the staff at IntechOpen, particularly Author Service Manager Ms. Zrinka Tomicic for her valuable help throughout the editing process. I am also grateful to my research student Mr. Abdul Manan for his assistance in preparing the introductory chapter. I am especially thankful to all the authors for their valuable contributions to this book.

> **Mahmood-ur-Rahman Ansari, Ph.D.** Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan

**1**

Section 1

Introduction

Section 1 Introduction

**Chapter 1**
