At ARI we are working on improvement of water-stress tolerance in soybean. Poor productivity of soybean in India is due to several abiotic, biotic, and socioeconomic factors. Among the abiotic stresses, water deficit is one of the major constraints. Incidences of drought stress are increasing over the years resulting up to 70% yield losses in many regions of the world, consequently affecting food security for the increasing world population. Therefore, it is essential to understand the response of soybean genotypes to water stress.

Examining the effect of water stress on several morphological and physiological parameters of soybean under different water regimes will help to identify drought-tolerant genotypes as well as the traits contributing to drought tolerance. We aim to identify candidate genes for water-stress tolerance in soybean using transcriptomic approach. Identified genetic and genomic resources will be useful for improvement of water stress tolerance in soybean.

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