Stress in Plants: The Hidden Half Book Review

by Catalina Bonati

Stress in Plants: The Hidden Half (2023) edited by Rishikesh Upadhyay is a non-fiction anthology of shortened scientific papers or essays that revolve around biotic and abiotic stresses of plants and their effects on the plant itself as well as agriculture and environment.

This book is not for the casual non-fiction reader. Specialized knowledge is required to understand these essays and as a layman, one must google most things. It starts with an introductory chapter to biotic and abiotic stresses, but this information is reiterated largely in the first three chapters and to a lesser extent throughout the rest of the book, making this collection highly repetitive. Although some chapters focus on a specific kind of stress, all essays have an overview on the kinds of biotic and abiotic stress, which makes them hard to distinguish from each other and feel very monotonous. There is one chapter in particular which does not add anything which has not been previously said before. However, the scope of each chapter varies, from discussing future applications of methods in preventing plant stress to uses of nanotechnology in plants. This books covers drought, waterlogging, freezing, aluminum toxicity, magnetic stress, phytoremediation, phytohormesis, salt stress, and more, but none of them in particular depth.

In the context of climate change and an increasing range of temperatures resulting in droughts and floods, freezing temperatures and heatwaves, as well as population growth, this book provides some insight into understanding the effects of inadequate water sources on plants and agriculture as well as the potential/limitations of human technology on bettering the conditions of plant life. Overall, this book is of interest to biologists and environmental scientists who wish for an introduction to plant stresses, but requires more effort for the casual reader. Although highly repetitive and with a slightly incohesive structure, this book is a good addition to the literature regarding plant productivity.