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Saltgrow hybrid breeding program for commercial rehabilitation of saline discharge sites

Saltgrow hybrid breeding program for commercial rehabilitation of saline discharge sites

Specifications

  • Client: Saltgrow
  • Scope:

    Direction of the Saltgrow salt tolerant hybrid program for breeding, development and commercialisation of salt-tolerant hybrid eucalypts for commercial rehabilitation of saline land including:

    • Selection of breeding parents and crossing program
    • Clonal propagation of hybrid progeny
    • Securing of partners for trials
    • Trial design
    • Trial establishment, management, measurement and analysis
    • Selection of elite clones
    • Supporting research including saline land management, timber properties, catchment impacts
  • Challenge:

    Dryland salinity is a major issue affecting agricultural production and the environment. Across Australia, dryland salinity is projected to affect over 17million ha of productive farmland.

  • Solution:

    The XylonovA R&D Program, and Saltgrow hybrid Eucalypt program aimed to turn a major environmental problem into an opportunity by breeding fast-growing salt-tolerant eucalypt hybrids with desirable wood properties for re-vegetation of saline affected land. The vision of the program was a commercial approach to retuning degraded land to production, with off-site catchment benefits provided by lowering water tables. The program successfully established over 500 trials across Australia and demonstrated the capacity to achieve commercial returns from degraded land.

  • Benefit to Client:

    This program provided the technology transfer step to develop Saltgrow hybrids from an experimental outcome into a commercial product marketed to land owners and land management organisations around Australia.

  • Market Sector: Renewable resources - agriculture, grazing and forestry
  • Capabilities:
    • Irrigated forest & fodder crops for beneficial use of waste water
    • Groundwater and salinity management
    • Tree and crop improvement
  • Location: NSW
  • Year: 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006