Elicitors for Sustainable Crop Production. Sustainability Sciences in Asia and Africa, Mohamed H I, Editör, Springer Nature, Singapore, ss.115-138, 2025
Plant growth depends on certain quantities of several abiotic factors such as temperature, water, light, CO2, and nutrients, and excess or scarcity of these factors results in abiotic stress, which adversely affects plant growth. Because climate change aggravates abiotic stress combinations, the enhancement of abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in plants is a must. Although breeding and genetic engineering have produced stress-tolerant varieties, nongenetic approaches to induce stress tolerance are regarded as rather practical. Exogenous application of numerous compounds has been shown to improve abiotic stress tolerance. One of these compounds is acetic acid (AA), an organic acid with diverse uses. Recently, numerous papers have shown the AA-induced changes in growth and stress response of several plant species. AA, even at low doses and with short treatment periods, improves stress tolerance. In this chapter, the synthesis of organic acids is described first. Then, genetic and nongenetic strategies that induce abiotic stress are explained. The relationship between AA and plant growth and the examples of the effects of AA on abiotic stress are reviewed. Finally, other uses of AA are briefly explored