Introducing salt tolerant crops to the coastal Lebanese area
Seawater intrusion into coastal areas threaten agricultural biodiversity and reduces the selection of cultivable cash crops. The Lebanese coastal area is affected by groundwater salinity resulting from the reduction of surrounding recharge zone caused by urban expansion and seawater intrusion into coastal aquifer largely used for irrigation of greenhouse and open field vegetable and fruit crops. To overcome this situation and fill the gaps in food production, salt tolerant millet (Pennisetum Glaucum) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) were introduced for the first time in 2016-2017 and 2018-2019 by the IAEA-FAO joint project: RAS-5072- Developing Effective Practices to Combat Desertification. We tested the performance of these crops for biomass production using different level of saline irrigation water (2-4-8-12 dSm-1 for forage millet and 6, 9, 12 and 15 dSm-1 for okra). Results showed the possibility of irrigating both crops on the widely spread sandy loam soil without economic and environmental losses using water with ECw equivalent to 8 and 12 dS m-1, respectively. Millet provided higher dry matter and showed good ability for N recovery and applied fertilizers N uptake irrespective of the level of salinity. Okra provided high yield under high water salinity level reaching 12 dS m-1 while maintaining optimal canopy temperature and chlorophyll content. He paper on okra performance under salinity stress is under review. We attached the published article on millet. Results indicate good potential for disseminating the cropping of forage millet and okra on the salinity affected coastal areas of drylands to secure a cover summer crop, support food production and biodiversity, provide additional source of feed crops and reduce the import of forage and meat in the country.
Dr. Talal Darwish