By Eric Trimble
Summary-
New information found by Australian and Chinese researchers has shed light on increasing the ground-salt tolerance of soybean, and possibly other plants. The lead of the project, University of Adelaide researcher Matthew Gilliham, stresses the importance of the discovery by saying "...many commercial crops are sensitive to soil salinity and this can cause major losses to crop yields... On top of that, the area of salt-affected agricultural land is rapidly increasing and is predicted to double in the next 35 years. The identification of genes that improve crop salt tolerance will be essential to our efforts to improve global food security." And protecting soybeans and their fields certainly is a very important task, as they are currently the fifth most produced crop in the world. After sifting through the genetic sequences of several hundred varieties of soybeans, Dr. Rongxia Guan and Professor Lijuan Qiu of the Institute of Crop Sciences pinpointed what looked like the salt-tolerance gene, and this discovery was later confirmed by researchers at the University of Adelaide. "We initially identified the gene by comparing two commercial cultivars," says Professor Qiu. "We were surprised and pleased to see that this gene also conferred salt tolerance in some other commercial cultivars, old domesticated soybean varieties and even wild soybean." This new information can now be used to selectively breed soybean plants for their salt tolerance, or even find similar genes in different crops such as wheat, says Professor Matthew Gilliham. Scientists can also use genetic markers, to ensure salinity resistance is maintained in different cultivars, or varieties, of the plant. Professor Qiu also found that, "It appears that this gene was lost when breeding new cultivars of soybean in areas without salinity. This has left many new cultivars susceptible to the rapid increases we are currently seeing in soil salinity around the world." Hopefully, work will be put into selectively breeding and future-proofing plants, such as the soybean, against soil salinity.Relevance-
A large part of the unit of heredity was spent answering the question: how can traits of particular plants and animals be changed over time to help the human population? The answer to that question being — selective breeding. Now that these researchers have found this gene for salt tolerance,they will selectively breed soybean plants that show saline resistance, until they have a plant that can withstand high levels of salt while still producing desirable beans. We also learned how to "tag" specific genes with gene markers, as the scientists in this lab are doing.
What are causing these salt affected agricultural lands to form in the first place?
ReplyDeleteThe main reason why a certain field would develop a problem with salinity is the fact that when the field is irrigated, the irrigation water contains salt. When the water evaporates or leaves, the salt stays behind in the soil.
DeleteWould it be easier to control the salt affected land rather than genetically modifying the crop?
ReplyDeleteIn order to desalinize a given plot of land, irrigation water is run through the plot as normal, however, about 10 to 20 percent of the water is let out. The water let out can be somewhere around 50 times higher than the water put in, so, over the course of a year or two, the field would be at a somewhat desirable salinity.
DeleteDepending on the salinity, a farmer could also grow salt-resistant crops as he desalinized, and once the field is at desirable conditions, he would have to desalinize less frequently.
So, I'm not sure how much the genetically-modified seeds would cost, but a farmer would have to run through this desalinization process less often with the seeds, and overall having the seed would do a better job future-proofing the field. (Also note that the runoff from desalinization can be harmful to the environment around it, if not taken care of properly.)
So yes, I think have the seeds would be easier.