The Production of Agriculturally Useful Mutant Plants with Characteristics Conducive to Salt Tolerance and Efficient Water Utilization

摘要

The current estimate of $16 million for annual damage from excess salinity in the Colorado basins is expected to reach $51 million by the year 2010. Feasibility utilizing new varieties of plants designed for compatability with excess salinity was investigated. The report demonstrates that available tissue culture methodology can be used to rapidly select NaCl-tolerant cell lines and to regenerate whole plants from these lines. The regenerated plants were shown to be salt-tolerant in greenhouse experiments, and were found capable of passing this tolerance onto two generations of offspring. It thus appears that salt tolerance, which can be economically selected in tissue culture, is both persistent and inheritable in regenerated plants. Salt-tolerant cell lines were selected in wheat, oats, and tobacco, and salt-tolerant plants were regenerated from these three cell line species. Greenhouse testing was nearly complete for tobacco, and was underway for oats.