Mechanisms of natural resistance of quinoa to abiotic stresses

Quinoa is traditionally grown crop originating from areas adjacent to Andean Mountains in South America, where it is grown by local native population for over 5000 years. Its extraordinal resistance to abiotic stresses as salinity, drought or frost, along with quite exceptional nutritional qualities of the seed, earned it the designation "supercrop" and the year 2013 was even announced by the FAO organization as the International Year of Quinoa. The main aim of this thesis is to identify the main mechanisms responsible for quinoa resistance to frost, salinity and drought. Marginally, this work also focuses on reaction of quinoa against an attack of most common fungal pathogen and also on different sensitivity of quinoa varieties towards the lenght of photoperiods, which are two important factors in expanding the cultivation of quinoa outside the original area