Strategies in improving plant salinity resistance and use of salinity resistant plants for economic sustainability

Abstract

Production of food, fodder and plant vegetation declined rapidly around the world due to climate change, increase in saline areas and loss of productive lands. A major challenge of sustainable development goals is increasing crop yield and food security by using non-conventional plants in agriculture. Hence, there is a need to develop halophyte based saline agriculture to meet growing demands to feed the world population. Halophytes are the natural inhabitants of salt contaminated degraded soils in diverse environments and offer a multitude of potential applications for sustaining crop productivity. Salt tolerance in halophytes is associated with the plant eco-physiological adaptation that play important roles in their survival and especially adaptation to adverse conditions. Priority attention is required to exploit saline lands and halophytes for economic purposes that will ultimately reduce energy, fresh water and food crises. High nutritional values, resistance to soil containments and production of industrially important products from halophytes offer solutions to apply biotechnological applications that could play an essential role in the production of food, fodder and medicinal supplements. The reclamation of degraded lands, removal of pollutants and the production of alternative energy sources are other emerging fields of applications of these groups of extremophile plants. To increase economic potential and agro-management systems, revegetation and rehabilitation of halophytes are recommended for landscaping, phytoremediation and effluent purification. This review summarizes the perspective of halophytes existence in saline, arid and semi-arid regions as promising alternative sources for industrial applications.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Animal fodder
• biofuel
• halophytes
• land degradation
• medicinal plants
• salt tolerance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.