Salt tolerant crops

From Genetic change could make crops thrive on salty soils:
"Mark Tester, a fellow at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, and colleagues developed a GM salt-tolerant Arabidopsis thaliana plant by introducing a gene into its root that diverts sodium ions into the roots rather than the shoots.

Plants minimise this salt accumulation naturally — but the gene decreased salt levels in the shoots by up to two-thirds.

"We've used genetic modification to amplify the process, helping plants to do what they already do — but to do it much better," says Tester.

The main challenge is applying the technique to crop plants. He says the Arabidopsis gene has already performed well in rice, and the researchers are currently analysing rice, barley and wheat plants containing their own versions of the gene.

Tester says the freely-available technology can also alter the accumulation of other chemicals, with implications for human nutrition, plant growth and phytoremediation — using plants to soak up pollutants from soil — all of which are important for developing countries."
However another professor says "One might be able to grow rice on a salty soil, but the yield may not be worth it. The big advantage will be on mildly salty soils where the yield is repressed in non-tolerant crops."