Orphan crops: A genetic treasure trove for hunting stress tolerance genes

Abstract

Abstract Orphan crops, also known as minor crops, smart foods, and superfoods, have attracted great attention recently because of their unique ability to grow in resource‐poor marginal lands, and under harsh environmental conditions without any intensive agricultural care. These crops possess inherent tolerance against different abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, cold, and heat. Recent advancements in genomic resources and high‐throughput phenotyping platforms have provided opportunities to explore the untapped potential of orphan crops to identify novel gene source(s) and mechanism(s) for developing abiotic stress‐tolerant crops. Moreover, genomics‐assisted investigations into the various physiological and molecular mechanism(s) could provide useful insights into stress tolerance mechanisms in these plants. Nevertheless, translating the hidden power of the tolerant gene pools from the orphan crops into major staple crops for enhancing their stress tolerance while maintaining yield is a challenging task. The contemporary tools of genomics can be used to unravel the secret of stress tolerance in orphan crops and employ these untapped genes for tailoring stress‐tolerant crop varieties to ensure global food security in the era of climate change.

Keywords

• abiotic stress
• food security
• genomics
• orphan crops