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First Halophile Potatoes Harvested
Razgorov Prikazka writes "A Dutch-based company from Groningen is trying to create a potato race that is able to survive in a saline environment. The first test-batch was just harvested (English translation of Dutch original) on the island Texel and seem to be in good shape. The company states that rising sea-levels will create a demand for halophile crops. I do wonder if one still has to put salt on ones potatoes when they are grown in salt water."
From the title, I thought they'd made potatoes that love to molest Halo players.
I'm guessing that they managed to coax the potatoes into maintaining their normal osmotic balance when watered with brackish water. For one thing a crop that absorbed the salt would be hard to get consistent.
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The National Association for the Advancement of Created Potatoes (NAACP) will fight for the rights of these new potatoes. And end the abuse of potatoes in such dishes as poutine and instant mashes.
I do wonder if one still has to put salt on ones potatoes when they are grown in salt water.
Do you put salt on your fish?
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Wake me when they develop bacon-butter-sourcream-phile potatoes. I'll be the first to switch to farming for a (short-lived) career.
I suspect that "salt water on their fields" in the sense of "field is actually under the sea" is going to be a relatively rare issue, except in places that are coastal already and extremely flat.
The big, ugly, much more widespread problem, though, is going to be aquifer infiltration. Groundwater is, well, underground, so your groundwater can easily be below sea level even if you are substantially above sea level(and, even if you are pumping from, say, 100 ft underground, you are getting water from a variety of levels, depending on the exact nature of the geological strata down there. Unless there is an impermiable layer just below your well depth, you'll have some amount of diffusion from below.).
Since virtually everyone is overpumping their aquifers anyway(though it is considered impolite to talk about it), even if sea levels stay exactly as they are it is expected that more groundwater is going to face seawater or deep saltwater(salt is a mineral, after all, and occurs in some geological strata quite naturally. If exposed to groundwater, it will form delicious brine just fine) infiltration. If the water you are using for irrigation is even slightly brackish, the salt levels in your fields will increase over time. Salt in the water gets sprayed on, water evaporates, salt doesn't, soil contains more salt. Repeat next season...
The "zOMG global warming, seas devouring the lands" angle is an easy way to give the story a topical flavor(plus, these guys are dutch, being underwater isn't a theoretical problem for them); but the need for agriculturally useful halophiles would exist even if sea levels don't budge at all, due to overuse and misuse of groundwater reserves.
It's not clear how high a salt concentration these potatoes tolerate. Probably lower than sea water. The article indicates that they're trying to make potatoes tolerant of salt water incursions into ground water. In areas with low-lying coastlines, groundwater becomes increasingly salty nearer to the ocean. This makes near-coastal land more useful.
A few crops, like "salt hay", will grow in seawater, even on tidal flats. Historically, though, the crops that will grow in those conditions are of marginal value.
Poutine is murder! - Potato Ethical Treatment Association (PETA)
Holland really does have appreciable farmland below sea level. They built dikes around their marshes centuries ago, pumped them out with windmills, pumped out their fresh water aquifers, and as the land dries up it shrinks and settles. Today it can be tens of feet below sea level. California is also experiencing this in the Sacramento River delta, and no doubt it is common elsewhere.
Bruce Perens.
These potatos will be served.... by Master Chef.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ