Seawater-based crop production: a feasibility study

Abstract

Selections of barley, Hordeum vulgare, obtained from a composite cross by means of salinized solution culture, a salt-tolerant research line from Arizona, and three cultivars were grown in dune sand and irrigated with water from the Pacific Ocean. All lines grew and produced grain of good feed quality. There is evidence of considerable phenotypic plasticity and of marked genotypic diversity with respect to conditions of seawater culture. Rough estimates of yield approached half the national average for barley.