Please, let me add and practical example, published recently in „Biotech Crops, Annual Updates 2013; Maize“:
„In the dry region of the USA, a drought tolerant maize wiil be cultivated in 2015 on a larger area and an increase in yield from 5.5 to 7.5t/ha is expected“.
In addition to maize, I would also add some aspects to rice, because rice used about 30% of freshwater for crops worldwide. There are already some older studies (2005-2007) which demonstrate a higher salinity and drought tolerance by plant breeding (e.g. Oh et al. 2005, Karaba et al. 2007; see references below).
I think that these examples will underline my requirements for more public fundamental research for a more efficient use of the limited resource water by plants. These results will improve the water efficiency and/or the water footprints per t of crops (L/t) and could be considered as sustainable contributions for food security.
Refernces mentioned above:
A.Karaba, S. Dixil, R. Greco, A. Ahoroni, K.R. Trijatmiko, N. Marsch-Martinez, A. Krishnan, K.N. Nataraja, M. Udayakumar, A. Pereira (2007) Improvement of water use efficiency in rice by expression of HARDY, an Arabidopsis drought and salt tolerance gene. PNAS 104; 15270-15275
S.H. Oh, S.I. Song, Y.S. Kim, H.-Y. jung, S.Y. Kim, M. Kim, Y.-K. Kim (2005) Arabidopsis CBF3, DREB1A and AFB3 in transgenic rice increased tolerance to abiotic stress without stunting growth. Plant Physiology 138, 341-351
Gerhard Flachowsky