BREEDING FOR SALINITY TOLERANCE IN PLANTS

Accumulation of high levels of salts in the soil is characteristic of arid and semi-arid regions. Although different curative and management measures are being used to render salt-affected soils fit for agriculture, they are extremely expensive and do not provide permanent solutions to overcome the salinity problem. In contrast, a biotic approach for overcoming salinity stress has gained considerable recognition within the past few decades in view of the vast experimental evidence from what has happened in nature concerning the evolution of highly salt-tolerant ecotypes of different plant species, and also from the remarkable achievements that have been made in improveing different agronomic traits through artificial selection.