Is it possible to genetically engineer plants to grow in deserts irrigated with sea water?

Question

It seems to me that if this were possible plants could be grown to produce bio ethanol or bio diesel. This would absorb as much co2 as would be emitted by burning it, co2 neutral. Irrigation by sea water would also have a small effect on reducing the rise in sea level. It seems such a simple idea.

Answer 1

This has been considered for the coastal strip in desert regions and has been written about extensively for a number of years. The idea is that you grow plants called halofiles. The plants can be used for biofuels or animal feeds. There is significant drawbacks to this approach. The salt water renders the land unuseable for anything else. If not managed properly, the land becomes salted and nothing will grow. Irrigating further in land has even more problems and hence is not viable. Cheap desalination would be more helpful and my company is pioneering in this area.

Answer 2

I'd had a similar thought about rising sea levels v. reducing water availability in many countries. Salt is the big problem - bulk desalination takes a lot of energy, I believe, so genetically modifying plants to grow in salt lands seems to be the way to go. But ... if you just pumped billions of gallons of sea water into the Sahara and let it permeate down into the water table, wouldn't it get purified as it sank down through hundreds of feet of sand and rock? Then pump it out and use it for irrigation a hundred miles away?

Answer 3

I would say it would be very easy as there already exist plants growing in the sea (seaweed). Apart from plants that grow in the sea there are also plants which grow in salt marshes such as varieties of sea grass and mangrove plants.

While we’re at it, what is wrong with using desalinated seawater to solve the water shortage we keep being told about in parts of this country? After all, as an island we are surrounded by the stuff.

Answer 4

Glasswort, sometimes called Marsh Samphire, is a possibility I thought of. At the moment it is too salty to eat, but this plants lives in saltmarshes and similar plants live in deserts, and I think it contains lots of vitamins and maybe proteins as well. Might be some scope, but I have not heard of any successes.

It will not stop large scale processes like global warming, but could support people in desert regions.

Answer 5

It would be possible. Some plants are already able to survive on sea water - sea couch grass, marram grass and so forth - so putting that gene into a crop plant would in theory allow the plant to grow on sea water.

Answer 6

You just found your calling. Go for it.
Plants that assimilate salt should get you the Nobel.
The sea would not diminish. We still have the same amount of water that we ever had. Clean water is a different story, but even that can be changed.

Ethanol is dead as far as I know. No one with any sense is investing it.

Answer 7

or you could just use seaweed. im not an expert on the subject but i would probably be tough to engineer an organism that would survive in sea water because there are many different systems effected. but good idea, i dont know how feasible it actually would be though in real life

Answer 8

most plants dont grow in a salt solution (seawater) so there would need to be de salination before the water is imported, this is expensive, genetic engineering is possible but people don't like it

Answer 9

Your problem would be pumping the seawater into the desert. If you can do that economically, you could probably grow mangrove trees.
Seaweed wouldn't work as it needs to be submerged (at least some of the time).

Answer 10

Great idea! However, I think there would need to be a means to desalinate the water, since salt is so acidic.