Salinisation and its Effect on Water and Nutrient Use Efficiency: Opportunities for Genetic Improvements

Keywords: Plant breeding, nutrients, salinisation, agrosystems, mariculture.

Summary:

Salinisation seems to be a serious threat of the world’s agricultural production and even more so when we think of future scenarios with a doubling of the world population, competing claims and biodiversity conservation. Genetic approaches have recently been made available to improve salt tolerance in major crop plants that will contribute to significant savings of fresh water and to maintaining high productivity under saline conditions. Salinity will also imply new opportunities. In the coastal zone where sea and land meets, new combinations of bio-production will be made possible and even plant production at open sea is feasible if we can develop precise techniques to fertilise these plants. The combination of plant breeding achievements with precise agronomical technology will sustain agriculture in the future and will make possible a new area of bio-production: mariculture.

Willem A Brandenburg, Plant Research International, Wageningen University and Research Centre, P.O. Box 16, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.

22 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, 30 references.