IID wins contract to evaluate 'salt loving' grasses
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IID was awarded a contract by NyPa Incorporated through its Australian subsidiary to supervise two R & D projects spanning Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. The value of the projects total some $A1.2 million and involves collaboration with the Departments concerned with Agriculture in those states, together with the University of Melbourne.
First 'showing' in West Australian wheat belt in 1995. Highly nutritious animal feed growing naturally in the late summer. It is utilising saline ground water (at over half seawater) that has risen to ruin formerly prime wheat land.
The Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation has provided funding for one project and AusIndustry for the other. The research is to evaluate the performance of four cultivars of the species Distichlis, a halophyte grass originating from the delta of the Colorado river in USA.
Mr Perry Gunner inspecting an early forage site in South Australia.
One cultivar of these grasses (Distichlis Palmeri) was cultivated by Indians to produce a delicious (gluten free) grain that was made into an unleavened bread (Yensen 1992). The remaining three are a turf, a forage producer (pictured below) and one suited to re-vegetating drier saline waste areas. All four cultivators have been introduced into Australia and are growing strongly in land now virtually useless and for which no other rehabilitation technique is economically viable.
NyPa forage at three weeks growth, Western Australia.
The key objective of the research is demonstrate the potential of the grasses to provide financially attractive products for Australian conditions while tending to lower the saline water tables causing the dry land salinity.
The NyPa plants have roots that can penetrate over one metre of impacted sodic soils and enable the plants to grow in anaerobic water logged conditions that characterise Australia's estimated 4.5 million ha. of land effected by rising saline ground water.
Dry land salinity is expected to reduce the wheat areas of Western Australia alone by one third in two generations (Agriculture WA 1998). It is a serious problem in all Australian states and has ultimately destroyed many civilisations that have been founded on irrigation in dry land areas globally.
Mr Kevin Rutter inspecting the NyPa Wild Wheat® in Western Australia in 1997.
The grasses have a potential role in Australia to provide:
- ruminant animal feed
- feedstock for aquaculture
- an amenity grass for turf
- and an edible grain
and to:
- lower saline groundwater tables
- concentrate saline irrigation drainage water and reduce nutrient loads prior to disposal
- rehabilitate saline mine site land
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