Conventional Vs Molecular Breeding Approaches for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Cereals

Abstract

Cereal crops are fundamental to global food security, yet their productivity is severely constrained by abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, heat, flooding, and nutrient imbalances. These stresses are further intensified by climate change, leading to significant yield losses and posing a major challenge to sustainable agriculture. Developing stress-tolerant cereal varieties is therefore a critical priority in modern plant breeding. This review examines the role of both conventional and molecular breeding approaches in enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in cereals. Conventional methods, including germplasm selection, hybridisation, backcrossing, and recurrent selection, have contributed to the development of several stress-tolerant varieties, although their progress is often limited by time consumption, low selection precision, and strong genotype × environment interactions. In contrast, molecular breeding techniques such as marker-assisted selection, marker-assisted backcrossing, genomic selection, transgenic approaches, and genome editing (CRISPR/Cas systems) offer greater accuracy and efficiency in targeting complex traits. The integration of conventional and molecular approaches has emerged as a promising strategy for accelerating genetic gains and improving resilience under stress-prone environments. This review highlights recent advances, comparative advantages, and limitations of these approaches, and emphasises the need for integrated, data-driven breeding strategies to develop climate-resilient cereal cultivars for sustainable agricultural production. Future breeding efforts should focus on combining phenotypic selection with genomic tools, strengthening data-driven approaches, and improving the understanding of stress-responsive mechanisms.