Farm land abandoned because salt levels are too high could be used to grow energy crops for biofuels production, according to plant science company Ceres.
The firm has developed new kinds of crops that have shown tolerance to very high salt concentrations.
Researchers have even tested their improved energy grass varieties with seawater from the Pacific Ocean.
The company based in Thousand Oaks, California, is now planning to test out its new plant varieties at field scale.
The US has around 15 million acres of salt-affected soils, while more than a billion acres worldwide has been abandoned because of salt damage.
Richard Hamilton, President and CEO of Ceres, said: “We have energy crops thriving on seawater alone. The goal, of course, is not for growers to water their crops with seawater, but to enable cropland abandoned because of salt to be put to productive uses.”
Varieties
Ceres, which markets its seeds under the Blade Energy Crops brand, is looking at varieties of switchgrass, sorghum, miscanthus and switchgrass to make use of the new salt-tolerant trait.
The company said it can “stack” the salt-tolerant trait it has developed with other useful traits to produce new varieties that will enjoy even higher yields in marginal areas.
Richard Flavell, Chief Scientific Officer at Ceres, said: “When we begin stacking together salt tolerance , drought tolerance and traits that allow plants to require less nitrogen fertilizer, we can deliver significant productivity and yield increases with fewer inputs.”
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