Dryland salinity

Dryland salinity is caused by rising water tables precipitated by clearing deep rooted perennial native vegetation and replacing it with shallow rooted annual plants. Putting perennial plants back in to the agricultural landscape is a means of limiting dryland salinity and underlies the Future Farm Industries CRC’s focus on profitable perennials.

The work of the Future Farm Industries CRC builds on that of the former CRC Salinity and aims to find profitable plant-based solutions to managing dryland salinity. 

The Future Farm Industries CRC’s Understorey project is focused on the salt tolerant plant messina. Messina was identified by the former CRC Salinity as an outstanding annual pasture legume for areas of southern Australia affected by dryland salinity and water-logging. Work on the project has focused on collecting and evaluating strains of rhizobia that will form nodules on messina in saline environments. Overcoming the symbiotic constraints will enable progress towards developing commercial cultivars of this salt tolerant plant.

The Salt Tolerant Cereal project aims to develop a feed quality cereal for land affected by dryland salinity and water-logging.
The Future Farm Industries SaltCap and SaltDecide project is developing decision-support tools for landholders wanting to establish best management practices for farming land affected by dryland salinity. The project is working on a catchment scale to show how better-managed dryland salinity can benefit the environment.