Abitoic stress such as salinity, poor nutrient uptake, drought..etc  is one of the most damaging and widespread stress faced by the plants. However, few resistance genes exist that can treat with the aniotic stress tolerance. The Generation Challenge program led by International Rice Research Institue has found two such genes that can improve rice productivity. The researchers are working on saltol that treats salinity tolerance and pup1 which will improve the phosphorous uptake. The Saltol is mapped in chromosome 1 of the seedling while the pup 1 is mapped in the rice chromosome 12. The cloning of these two genes are expected to be complete in a year and two. Once these genes are succefully cloned and engineered into the rice, it will incerease the productivity of the rice and inturn increase the farmers income.

Source: Global Knowledge center on crop biotechnology
published date: April 11, 2006
website:http://www.isaaa.org/kc/
more information regarding the article can be found in the website: http://www.generationcp.org/sccv10/sccv10_upload/opposites_attract.pdf