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Written by Truth About Trade & Technology
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Thursday, 09 July 2009 17:26 |
The Herald Sun
July 8, 2009
SALT tolerant plants have been developed using a new type of genetic modification by a team of international researchers based in Adelaide.
The researchers, based at the University of Adelaide's Waite campus, say their findings could have an impact on world food production and food security.
Researchers used a new GM technique to contain salt in parts of the plant where it does less damage.
"Salinity affects the growth of plants worldwide, particularly in irrigated land where one-third of the world's food is produced," researcher Mark Tester said.
"And it is a problem that is only going to get worse as pressure to use less water increases and quality of water decreases.
"Helping plants to withstand this salty onslaught will have a significant impact on world food production."
Professor Tester, from the university's School of Agriculture, Food and Wine and also the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, said researchers used a technique to keep salt as sodium ions (Na+) out of the leaves of a model plant species.
The researchers modified genes specifically around the plant's water conducting pipes, or xylem, so salt is removed from the transpiration stream before it gets to the shoot.
"This reduces the amount of toxic Na+ building up in the shoot and so increases the plants tolerance to salinity," Prof Tester said.
"In doing this, we've enhanced a process used naturally by plants to minimise the movement of Na+ to the shoot - we've used genetic modification to amplify the process, helping plants to do what they already do but to do it much better."
The team was now transferring the technology to crops such as rice, wheat and barley.
"Our results in rice already look very promising," Prof Tester said.
The work was led by researchers from the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and the University of Adelaide's School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, in collaboration with scientists from the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
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