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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

University of Adelaide researchers have made a breakthrough in investigating salt tolerance in plants which could lead to new salt tolerant varieties of crops [phys.org], and also answer unresolved questions in plant biology.

The researchers, also from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and in collaboration with the University's School of Medicine, have discovered that a protein known to control salt balance in animals works the same way in plants.

The research, published in the journal Plant Cell and Environment, found that in plants, as in animals, a group of proteins, a type of 'aquaporin', can transport salt ions as well as water.
...
The researchers believe these "double-barrelled" aquaporins may be the elusive proteins that let sodium ions─the toxic component of salt─in and out of plant roots. Since the early 1990s researchers have known that salt enters plant roots in saline conditions via pores in the membrane, but the identity of these pores has remained a mystery. This particular aquaporin is abundant on the surface of roots.

"We discovered that it has characteristics similar to the properties previously identified for the pores responsible for sodium ion transport," says co-lead author Dr Caitlin Byrt, Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine. "This finding opens new possibilities for modifying how plants respond to high salt and low water conditions."

Adjusting a plant species's uptake of salt could expand arable land or make use of salty water.

Original Submission