One of the objectives of the CRC is to identify and develop new crops that contribute to improved productivity and profitability of saline lands.

The project aims to develop a salt- and waterlogged-tolerant cereal, and forms part of the CRC's research into scientifically sound and practical plant-based approaches to managing salinity in wheat belt areas.

Our aim is to develop cereals capable of extending cropping onto soils with salinity levels too high for existing cultivars. A number of Hordeum species inhabit salt marshes and since several Hordeum x wheat hybrids have been reported, it might be possible to cross these salt tolerant species with wheat. Hordeum marinum (common sea barley grass) is a species of particular promise.

This research aims to provide productive options for managing the increasingly large areas that have and will become salty over the next ten years.

The research challenge

Sea barley grass (Hordeum marinum) has very high salinity tolerance, and is capable of growing at levels approaching sea water. It also posssesses mechanisms for root aeration which contribute to waterlogging tolerance. The challenge for researchers is to create a successful hybrid with wheat that maintains these key traits.

Specifically this project will:

• Identify sources of salt- and waterlogging-tolerance in 'wild' Hordeum germplasm.

• Determine which of the salt- and waterlogging-tolerant species can be crossed with wheat, using cytogenetic techniques.

• Produce cytogenetic stocks (pre-breeding materials) from successful Hordeum x wheat crosses, and identify lines with a high degree of salt- and waterlogging- tolerance.

How is the research being done?

The research team is screening 'wild' Hordeum germplasm to find which species can donate genes for salt- and waterlogging-tolerance, and which can be hybridised with wheat. The outcomes are uncertain in this cutting-edge research, because we know little about the 'wild' Hordeum species.

We have:

• produced a Hordeum marinum - wheat amphiploid, demonstrating the feasibility of using Hordeum marinum in the development of cytogenetical stocks to transfer traits associated with salt- and waterlogging-tolerance into bread wheat.

• screened thirty-six Hordeum accessions for waterlogging tolerance in collaboration with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences which holds the most comprehensive collection of 'wild' Hordeum germplasm in the world

• screened these same accessions for salinity tolerance in Sweden

• imported accessions of interest to the project and are presently growing these in a quarantine glasshouse at the University of Adelaide

• collected a diverse range of Hordeum marinum accessions from across the Western Australia wheat belt

Researchers are now:

• conducting the cytogenetic work to hybridise selected 'wild' Hordeum species with wheat

• screening these cytogenetic lines for salt- and waterlogging-tolerance as the lines become available.

Benefits from this research

Salinisation is a threat for up to one-third of agricultural land in Australia with large areas already salt-affected. Currently the productive use of saline land is limited to fodder for livestock, with little opportunity for cropping.

Our objective is to develop a cereal with substaintially more salt tolerance than current cultivars of barley or wheat, so extending the range of soils on which cereals can be grown profitability. Not only will this offcer farmers the benefit of more profitable options for salty land, it will also give them more flexibility - particularly for those farmers who do not use livestock in their enterprise.

Salty land is often prone to waterlogged, so waterlogging tolerance is also needed. Undomesticed or 'wild' species within the Triticeae (same tribe as wheat and barley) are potential sources of salt- and waterlogging-tolerance.

Even with these advances, cropping is unlikely to be viable on severely salt-affected land, where fodders such as saltbush and salt tolerant grasses will remain the best option.

Nor will salt-tolerant cereals 'solve' the problem of salinity. They might help use manage some of its symptoms, but will do little to address the cause of rising water tables, for that we need perennials with high water use.