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2007-01-20 | permalink
New salt-tolerant non-GE wheat set to bring life to ’dead’ farmland
Scientists have developed a salttolerant wheat which could allow farmers to crop a third of the 1.8 million hectares of agricultural land lost to salinity across the Wheatbelt. A common weed called sea barley grass, which grows in soils almost as salty as sea water, has been crossbred with a traditional wheat variety to produce a salt and waterlogging tolerant cereal. Project leader Tim Colmer, of the Co-operative Research Centre for the Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity, said the new wheat strain could be sown on moderately salt-affected soils which contained up to one quarter the salt levels of sea water. At these levels, it is no longer viable for farmers to grow traditional grain varieties because of severe losses in crop yields.
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News
2007-01-20 | permalink
New salt-tolerant non-GE wheat set to bring life to ’dead’ farmland
Scientists have developed a salttolerant wheat which could allow farmers to crop a third of the 1.8 million hectares of agricultural land lost to salinity across the Wheatbelt. A common weed called sea barley grass, which grows in soils almost as salty as sea water, has been crossbred with a traditional wheat variety to produce a salt and waterlogging tolerant cereal. Project leader Tim Colmer, of the Co-operative Research Centre for the Plant-Based Management of Dryland Salinity, said the new wheat strain could be sown on moderately salt-affected soils which contained up to one quarter the salt levels of sea water. At these levels, it is no longer viable for farmers to grow traditional grain varieties because of severe losses in crop yields.
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