Australian scientists have introduced a non-genetically modified durum wheat, which produces improved grain yield in soils with up to 25% salinity. Here are some facts as gleaned from ScienceDaily (2012):

• Research was led by scientists at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Research Institute
• • Field studies were a great success.
  • The new wheat’s grain yields in salty soils out performed regular durum wheat’s yields under normal conditions.
  • The research was a collaborative project between CSIRO, NSW Department of Primary Industries, University of Adelaide, the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology.
• Australia is the second-largest exporter of wheat, after the United States.
• Salinity affects over 20% of the world’s soils.
• Due to climate change, salinity increasingly threatens the global food supply.
• Domestication and breeding has narrowed the durum wheat gene pool, which leaves it susceptible to environmental duress.
• Researchers discovered a salt-tolerant gene in an ancient ancestral relative to modern wheat, Triticum monococcum.

Non-GM Salt Tolerant Wheat First of its Kind by Shari Maria Silverman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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