Halophytes for high-saline agriculture: optimising performance and understanding physiology

最近的旱灾使澳大利亚的经济增长减少了1%，农作物和畜牧业生产损失超过60亿美元。与此同时，工业和市政水处理过程产生了大量化学质量受损的水。在大多数情况下，这些资源不能直接用于作物灌溉，必须以极高的成本和浪费处理。该项目将利用盐生植物作为替代经济作物，利用昆士兰州苏拉特盆地地区煤层气作业产生的咸水。这将在五年的运作中节省至少4800万美元。

The recent drought has shaved off up to 1 per cent of Australia's economic growth and resulted in losses of over $6 billion in crop and livestock production. At the same time, very large volumes of water with impaired chemical quality are generated by industry and municipal water treatment processes. In most cases, these cannot be used directly for crop irrigation and have to be disposed of at extreme cost and waste. This project will utilise halophytes as 'alternative cash crops' to use the saline water produced by the coal seam gas operations in the Surat Basin area in Queensland. This will result in a saving of at least $48 million over the five years of operation.