HALOPHYTES: TOOLS FOR RECLAIMING SALINISED AGRICULTURAL LAND

Abstract

The progressive salinisation of irrigated cropland, exacerbated by climate change, is one of the leading causes of the reduction of crop yields worldwide, representing a severe threat to food security. Halophytes, wild plants adapted to naturally saline habitats, represent valuable tools to reclaim lost salinised agricultural land. First, as the basis of "saline agriculture", growing them commercially as "minor crops" for food, feed, fibre, biofuels, compounds of industrial interest, or as ornamental or medicinal plants. They could be cultivated in saline soil and irrigated with saline water, not competing with conventional crops for these limited resources. Some breeding will be necessary to improve specific agronomic characteristics, but they already possess the most challenging trait to be introduced by breeding: salt tolerance. Many halophytes are salt/heavy metal hyperaccumulators and can also be used for phytoremediation and desalination of salt-affected land, even growing them with standard crops (intercropping, crop rotations). The same approaches can be used in naturally saline, marginal soils that are useless for cultivating our salt-sensitive crops. This review will discuss some examples of these proposed uses of halophytes.