Energy costs of salinity tolerance in crop plants

The global need for increased food production means that agriculture is moving into regions with lower rainfall and saline soils, which occupy over 6%of the world land area (Munns, 2005). The aim of this workshop was to work towards completing an energy budget for the mechanisms of salinity tolerance in crop plants, as a guide to the most cost-effective breeding strategies for increasing salt tolerance and yield of important crops. The discussions took into account the supply of energy from mitochondria and chloroplasts, energy demands for transport of water, Na+, Cl- and K+, as well as for processes involved in growth and osmotic adjustment.

The premise of the workshop was that by undertaking an energy budget of salinity tolerance using our current understanding of transport processes and measurements of fluxes, including respiratory fluxes through the cytochrome vs alternative respiratory pathways, we would test our understanding and/or reveal deficiencies in the measurements.