Salinity and Plant Productivity

Plant productivity is limited on an estimated one third of the irrigated land in the\nworld or approximately 4 x 10? ha by soluble salt accumulations in the soil, often\nreferred to as soil salinity or salinity. As irrigated agriculture expands, more salinity\nproblems will develop because there are millions of hectares of potentially irrigable\nland that could become saline. Every year new salinity problem areas develop and are\nidentified. Salinity is the most important problem facing irrigated agriculture, and\nsolving salinity problems is one of the greatest challenges to agricultural scientists.\nMuch research has been conducted during the past 30 to 40 years to determine the\nrelative tolerance of crops to salinity. Most of the salinity tolerance data available\nthrough the early 1960s was compiled into useful relationships by Bernstein in 1964,\nand these data have been cited and applied throughout the world. Since then, many\nnew salinity tolerance studies have been conducted, and many new management practices\nhave been proposed, evaluated, and some of them practiced to reclaim salt-affected\nsoils for improved crop production. Recently, Maas and Hoffman evaluated\nexisting salinity tolerance data for agricultural crops and presented the data graphically\nso that the relative tolerance among crops could be easily compared.