Molecular genetic improvement of salt tolerance in plants

Abstract

Salinization of soils has had an adverse effect on ancient civilizations and it continues to affect agricultural productivity in many parts of the world. A growing world population and a continual decline in arable land area will necessitate, in addition to appropriate soil management practices, bringing into production marginal lands that are unsuitable for conventional crops. While soil reclamation will continue to play a role in this regard, development of new crops from halo-phytes and modification of existing crops will provide a sustainable solution. Given the magnitude of the task, development of salt-tolerant crops is being pursued from many angles, and judicious approaches should evolve from these efforts. The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the problem of salinity and summarize the contributions of molecular biology to the knowledge base in improving salinity tolerance in plants.