Management of Crops in Water-Logged Soil

Excessively water saturates the soil pores and creates waterlogging when there is indeed no or very thin coating of water present on the soil. Waterlogging typically causes changes in gene expression that affect a plant’s physiology, metabolism, and anatomy. Crops respond to and adapt to waterlogging stress in a variety of ways, including the development of aerenchyma, adventitious root development, metabolism of energy, and plant-hormone signaling. One of the most damaging abiotic stresses that annually destroys 17 million km2 of land, along with drought, is floods. Recent studies have found that increased extreme weather events, like flooding and soil waterlogging, brought on by climate change are having a substantial influence on agricultural productivity. Because of this, it is essential to understand how crops are impacted by flooding stresses and to develop better production methods that boost cropping systems’ resistance and ability to endure extreme climate events. Potential management strategies that can be utilized to alleviate the stress brought on by soil waterlogging include the adoption of waterlogging-tolerant varieties, altering administration practices, improving permeability, and putting adaptive nutritional monitoring systems into place. These management approaches, which may be crop- or site-specific, should be assessed for their commercial feasibility before developing future implementation strategies that enable sustainable agricultural output from waterlogged soils.