Salinity Tolerance
Approximately 234 million hectares of irrigated cropland provides about 40 percent of the world's food supply. Of this area, 45 million hectares (20 percent) is impacted by salinity, and continued irrigation leads inexorably to increasing salinization. Of the world's 1.5 billion hectares of dry land agriculture, 32 million hectares are impacted by salinity. Together, these two categories of salinized land amount to approximately 77 million hectares, the equivalent of 55 percent of the world's corn production area ($26 billion crop value), and more than 100 percent of the world's soybean crop area ($28 billion crop value). (5)
 Picture provided by monsanto.com | What is being done Arcadia Biosciences is developing a technology that will allow plants to produce normal yields and quality under saline conditions. The technology will be applicable to a wide range of crops, including corn, rice, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, vegetables and turf. Arcadia's salt-tolerant plants will also bind excess salt from soil into the plant and have the ability to rehabilitate salinized land over time. Arcadia's salt-tolerant plant technology will improve farming efficiencies and reduce the need to expand agricultural activities into new land areas. In addition, this technology will reduce the need for fresh water by allowing increased use of salinized irrigation water. |
Metal Tolerance An effective metal phytoremediation strategy depends on the ability of plants to tolerate and accumulate metals from the environment. Metals in soil and water exert a stress on plants that is detectable at the organismic and cellular level, and as a consequence of this stress, plant ethylene levels increase. The increased levels of ethylene typically exacerbate stress symptoms such that reducing this excess ethylene improves plant survival. Plant growth-promoting bacteria that express the enzyme 1-aminocylcopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase have been shown to lower plant ethylene levels and enhance a plant’s ability to proliferate in metal-contaminated soil. (6) |  Picture provided by sustainabilityninja.com |
Salinity- Why is this important? This is important because it allows crops to be grown in soil that has a high percentage of salt. A high percentage of salt takes the water away from the plants' cells, causing them to die, but with the salt tolerant gene, plants can live in bad soil. | Metals- What this is important? This is important because metal tolerance in plants will allow them to grow in soil with high levels of metal. They will be able to grow without the major stress that increases ethylene levels. |
