Food securityNew wheat strain could ease food shortages

Aussie scientists develop salt tolerant strain of durum wheat // Source: pinchas.net

Researchers in Australia have developed a new strain of salt-tolerant wheat that could help minimize food shortages.

Australia is the second largest exporter of grain in the world, but in recent years increased salt levels in the soil have degraded some of the country’s primary wheat-growing regions. In addition, increased salt levels have affected roughly 20 percent of the world’s farm land.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that to overcome these challenges, Australian scientists have bred salt tolerance into durum wheat, boosting yields by 25 percent in saline soils.

“This work is significant as salinity already affects over 20 percent of the world’s agricultural soils, and salinity poses an increasing threat to food production,” said Rana Munns, one of the study’s co-authors and a scientist with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in a statement.

As a result of domestication and breeding, modern wheat has suffered from a loss in genetic diversity, leaving it more susceptible to environmental factors like high salt levels.

“Salty soils are a major problem because if sodium starts to build up in the leaves it will affect important processes such as photosynthesis, which is critical to the plant’s success,” explained Matthew Gilliham, the senior author of the paper.

To overcome this challenge, scientists discovered a salt tolerance gene in Triticum monococcum, or einkorn wheat, one of the earliest cultivated forms of wheat. The gene helps wheat thrive in salty conditions by producing a protein that removes sodium from the leaves.

In field tests, researchers found that adding the gene to durum wheat boosted productivity by as much as 25 percent in salty soil, but did not see any changes under normal conditions.

Durum wheat is primarily used to make couscous and pasta and Munn believes it may be commercially available “in the near future.”

The researchers are currently working with combining the salt-tolerance gene with bread wheat and are testing its efficacy in field trials.