Developing a Swiss GM plant

Choice of plant and gene

So far my focus has been on climate change induced problems and plants adapted to the same. Researches about drought resistant GM plants have been very efficient and I found out that there have been much more studies to this topic than I expected. That’s why I decided to devote this blog entry to a quite different upcoming issue: soil salinity. Salinity has increased in agricultural soils for many reasons. Due to intensive fertilization there has been accumulation of salt ions. Further to mention is the high amount of salt being distributed in winter to defrost our roads. On one side, it can get directly into the soil by draining away with the melting snow and on the other side it gets into our sewage water system and then in public water bodies which are often used for irrigation. Above all, drier summers mean less rain that could wash away the salts and therefore mitigate the salinization.

As wheat is the most cultivated crop in Switzerland, I’d like to design a highly salt-tolerant wheat sort. Maas and Hoffman (1977) call wheat a moderately salt-tolerant crop. [1] The newly created crop would be even more tolerant, as this statement was issued in 1977 and soil salinity surely has increased since then.

To enhance salt tolerance the osmoregulation has to be modified. Two possible ways of doing so are called “salt exclusion” as well as “tissue tolerance” and are described by Munns R., James R. and Läuchli A. (2005) [2] Genes being responsible for these strategies we find in halophyte. [3] Halophytes are plants that are adapted to places with naturally higher salt concentration, e.g. beaches. I’d like to take the appropriate gene from Thellungiella parvula, known as salt cress. Its genome has been sequenced recently [4] and is available in the gene bank. T. parvula is closely related to Arabidopsis thaliana which has been used for genomic experiments numerously.

Arguments for further research

The Swiss National Foundation should finance my project for the following two reasons:

• Wheat is the most commonly cultivated crop in Switzerland and a staple food worldwide. Hugh annually crop loss can be prevented by supporting researches concerning wheat.

• Soil salinity is a newer, upcoming issue in Swiss agriculture that is not yet paid enough attention at.

If I were the person responsible for grants at the Swiss National Foundation I would probably not finance this project due to the fact, that there already exist some studies and experiments have been carried out on the subject. Furthermore, with Switzerland’s commitments to produce more sustainable I’d rather support studies that look for avoidance of salinization such as more efficiently fertilisation or environmentally friendlier winter services.

References

[1] Maas EV, Hoffman GJ. (1977). Crop salt tolerance – current assessment. Journal of the Irrigation and 

         Drainage Division of the American Society of Civil Engineering 103, 115–134.

[2] Munns R., James R. and Läuchli A. (2006). Approaches to increasing the salt tolerance of wheat and other 

         cereals. Journal of Experimental Botany 57, 1025-1043

[3] Colmer TD et al. (2005). Improving salt tolerance of wheat and barley: future prospects. Australian Journal 

          of Experimental Agriculture 45, 1425-1443

[4] Dassanayake M et al. (2011). The genome of the extremophile crucifer Thellungiella parvula. Nature 

          Genetics 43, 913-918