title: Toward breeding new land-sea plant hybrid species irrigable with seawater for dry regions.
abstract: A plant species growing in sea or coastal saltmarsh is greatly tolerant to high concentrations of salts, and a plant species growing in desert or dry regions is highly tolerant to drought. Breeding a new plant hybrid species from both species by means of cellular grafting, genome fusion or nuclear transfer would generate, at least in theory, a hybrid plant species that should be strongly tolerant to harsh aridity and salinity and would be potentially irrigable with seawater. Such prospective species can be used for example as a fodder, biofuel crop or stabilizer species to protect soil from wind erosion and sandy storms in dry regions. Breeding such species would change the surface of the world and help to solve major challenges of starvation, malnutrition and poverty. Here, I propose potential approaches that would be worthy of investigation toward this purpose.
authors: a Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) ; Paris , France.
authors: Khaled
authors: K
authors: Moustafa
mesh_terms: D057914:Agricultural Irrigation; D001947:Breeding; D055864:Droughts; D019669:Embryophyta / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*; D018745:Genome, Plant; D006824:Hybridization, Genetic; D008954:Models, Biological; D012623:Seawater; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: cellular grafting; genome fusion; haloxerophyte; irrigation with seawater; new plant species; plant and environmental stress; salinity and drought tolerance; saltwater