The greatest fear from global climate change is drought, and water is the most important factor influencing wheat growth. Soil and water conservation are, therefore, key requirements for sustaining productivity and environmental quality in semi-arid cropping systems. Great attention has been paid to the management of, demand for, and more efficient use of water. The comprehensive technical strategies reviewed in this paper include conserving water to combine both increased agricultural productivity and resource conservation; enquiries into how wheat plants respond to drought through morphological, physiological and metabolic modifications that occur in all plant organs; breeding for drought tolerance where there is a delineated stress environment and genotype × environment interactions are stable; and effective conservation of rainfall and high efficiency of use. Valuable techniques such as conservation tillage, mulch cultivation, limited irrigation, introduction of drought-tolerant varieties and rotation systems can be adjusted to local agricultural practices.
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