Salinity and Plant Productivity

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