Salt-friendly crops key to 63 billion gallons in ethanol from non-foodstock land, say researchers

Saltwater-tolerant crops, known as halophytes, are in focus in a Science magazine story about the potential to increase the world’s irrigated acreage up to 50 percent by increasing reliance on and research in salt-tolerant agriculture.

Biologists writing in Science, and citing the work of University of Arizona plant biologist Robert Glenn,  say that up to 63 billion gallons of ethanol could be produced on non-foodstock lands by using halophytes. Glenn estimated that there are 480,000 square miles of  currently unusable land that could be made productive with halophytes.

Salicornia is a feedstock often cited, and previously highlighted in Digest articles, producing up to 1.7 times the oil contained in comparable mass of sunflowers, according to the Science article.

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