University of Illinois researcher find perennial grasses suitable for salty soils

In Illinois, most prime agricultural land is used to produce food crops, leaving biofuel producers to establish crops on marginal land. The soil on marginal land is often salty, making crop production difficult. But University of Illinois researchers have found several varieties of perennial grasses that can withstand high salt concentrations.

The researchers subjected six prairie cordgrass accessions and three switchgrass cultivars to different levels of sodicity and salinity over two years of growth. The team conducted a similar experiment in an earlier study, but only looked at one cordgrass (‘Red River’) and one switchgrass (‘Cave-In-Rock’) cultivar, over only one growing season.

Three prairie cordgrasses, pc17-102, pc17-109, and ‘Red River’, and one switchgrass, EG-1102, produced equivalent amounts of dry biomass when subjected to high-salt conditions. However, they produced approximately 70 to 80 percent less biomass in salty conditions than they did with no added salt. In contrast, the salt-susceptible switchgrass cultivar, EG-2012, produced approximately 99.5 percent less biomass in high-salt treatments than it did without added salt.

The next step for the researchers is to bring this work out of the greenhouse, where climate is controlled and water is unlimited, to real-world scenarios. Preliminary field research has shown that prairie cordgrass is very successful in salt-affected areas in Illinois and South Dakota.