Rachel Predeepa, currently employed as a Lecturer in Alpha Arts and Science College, University of Madras, Porur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India did research on rice that led to the compilation of this book in the University of Western Australia, Australia. She has to her credit 3 years of teaching experience in biology, microbiology, biochemistry and biotechnology with versatile research experience on salt stress. She has to her credit worked on legumes, cotton and the symbiotic bacteria Rhizobium, besides rice. Her area of research interests are biofertilisers, plant-microbe interaction, food biotechnology (especially probiotics) and salt stress physiology in plants and microbes. Rice is a well-established salt-sensitive cereal crop topping second worldwide as food crop. Rice, on the other hand, is also a reputed and only semi-aquatic cereal crop. the rice plant has many adaptations for surviving the aquatic environment, which includes the development of specialised roots called adventitious roots, increase in aerenchymal area, increase in number of roots, reduction of laterals, stunted growth, thickening of the apoplastic barrier in the roots and induction of 'radial oxygen loss (ROL) barrier'. How these adaptations respond at salinity is a question that has been least explored, and is being addressed in this book.

A number of interesting findings on the response of the plant to salinity under stagnant deoxygenated conditions (which has been established to simulate waterlogged conditions for performing laboratory level studies using hydroponics) in comparison to the normal way of growing rice plants using hydroponics (fully aerated solutions) were compared. the purpose of this study hopes only to give a precise representation of the response of rice plants to salt stress under its natural environment.