Look at sea level rise maps for Texas -> -> Louisiana Gulf Coast. Breeding plants has to be thought of as constantly evolving as conditions change. Significant portions will be underwater, some seasonally wet with saline ocean water.
People like to do these kinds of experiments with discrete "steps" up or down in concentration to test effects like the effects of salinity in gene expression of plants. But in reality, these environments will not be experiencing that -- it will be daily/seasonal fluctuations. An appropriate covariance dynamics must be selected. Mixing ratios w.r.t. (eddy flux cov, dynamics in a context of proton coupled electron transfer as the model "unit" that is continuously being calculated in runtime.
The experimental apparatus can be set up to vary ionic strengths w.r.t. And it can certainly be simulated well with current hardware, just a matter of determining coefficients first. The question is, will the method contribute to practical breeding goals as all American coasts undergo rapid change? Migration is where theoretical models fall short. Any theoretical biologists out there?
This question suggests that nobody ever thought of breeding for salinity tolerance in crops, when many plant scientists devoted their entire career to this subject, following the pioneering work of Manny Epstein at UC Davis.
His book published in 1983, following many primary publications, can be found here:
http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=LBL1eaXJhrcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&dq=epstein+salinity&ots=-qFR0x0OQC&sig=bklkkEUXqjVN9tAIUE0tDajQHRQ#v=onepage&q=epstein%20salinity&f=false
"Normal" or "standard" crops have been bred during centuries for growth in non-briny environments, and it is well known that adapting them to briny conditions is laborious. An alternative might be to evaluate whether plants that naturally grow with briny water have potential for economic use. This could be raw material for production or energy rather than food or feed.
Many indigenous cultures as well have bred and selected crops for salt water tolerance. A good example is taro varieties in Polynesia and south east Asia. There is heaps of ethnographic data talking about watering crops with brackish water or growing them in coastal wetlands. I work with some of these varieties in Hawaii, where we are conducting some preliminary tests to look at the variability in salt-water tolerance of the varieties.
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