Israelis use tree gene to fight desertification

The Euphratica trees live in the Avdat canyon in Israel’s southern Negev desert and thrive on the area’s scarce, highly saline water. When the gene is inserted into other kinds of poplar trees, they also adapt, the scientists said.

"What we call desertification is a worldwide problem andit’s already very severe," said Professor Arie Altman, head of Hebrew University’s Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture. "It’s conquering the world and we have to stop it."

The gene transfer technology, the researchers believe, hasenormous potential in that it might eventually be applied to protect other kinds of plants under environmental threat.

"We’re unravelling the basic systems and using theEuphratica as a gene source," Altman said.

"We expect that the same group of protective proteins willbe relevant in fruit trees and tomatoes, and there is some evidence for their homology (similarity)."

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisationestimates that half the world’s arable land will be salinised in the next 50 years, with 60 percent of agricultural water becoming salinated as well.

High salinity is destructive to most plants because itdisrupts the osmotic process that allows fluids to cross a membrane and maintain a life-sustaining balance of chemicals.

MORE RESISTANT CROPS NEEDED

"What we need are varieties of vegetables, fruit trees andother crops that are able to grow under more severe conditions and higher salinisation," Altman said.

From Chile to China, land is already stressed by an overalldecrease in precipitation, higher temperatures associated with global warming, and increased industrialisation and urbanisation, he said.

Moreover, population growth continues to outpace the annual1.8 percent annual growth in world agricultural production.

Altman and the Israeli research team are now working withEuropean Union scientists because the white poplar, an important tree in European forestry, is suffering similar damage patterns, albeit from industrial waste rather than desertification.

The scientists think that in addition to "greening" thedesert and improving world food supply, the research could help to launch industrial applications that can clean up land damaged by pollution or help prevent it in the first place.

Altman cautioned that the development of morestress-tolerant plants will rely on a fuller understanding of the many genes involved, the proteins that promote them and their complex interactions, and that no one protein or gene holds all the keys.

But the similarities in cell behaviour are promising, andAltman noted that his own research team would not have made progress had others not first discovered protective proteins unique to Antarctic fish.