2002-2004 Specialty Crops Research Program
University of California

Principal Investigators: Eduardo Blumwald and Larry R. Teuber

Project title: Salt-tolerant alfalfa

California leads the nation with a very large portion of the total production for many crops such as alfalfa, peppers, broccoli, melons, tomatoes, etc.. At any given time, alfalfa (an extremely important food source for California’s number one agricultural industry, livestock and poultry) is produced on upwards of 1,500,000 acres throughout the state with as much as 75% of the production in the Imperial Valley and San Joaquin Valley. Counties in these regions produce a significant portion of the leading specialty crops listed above. In the San Joaquin Valley as much as 80% and in the Imperial Valley virtually 100% of the crop land is marginally or seriously affected by soil salinity, and 25% of the potential production may be lost primarily due to salt. Alfalfa has an extremely deep root system, is harvested for its foliage (hay) every 28 to 35 days between March and December, and it is grown for a period of 3 to 4 years before the land is rotated to a new crop. Therefore, development of cultivars that not only produce better on saline soils, but also accumulate the salt in the foliage, presents a great potential for improving soil quality for subsequent more sensitive high value crops.
The general aim of this proposal is to generate salt tolerant alfalfa. We envision that a combination of alfalfa attributes and the ability to grow in high NaCl concentrations, will produce a salt tolerant crop that would be useful not only as a forage crop, but could also be used for bioremediation of salt-compromised land and as an efficient cover crop. The salt tolerant alfalfa germplasm developed in this program will be in a highly productive genetic background adapted to production in California. The best of these materials will be developed as cultivars, protected by Plant Variety Protection, and made available to the California Agricultural industry.