Food and Fiber from Seawater, Sand, and Solar Energy

Funded by the Office of Sea Grant, U.S. Department of Commerce, this research is conducted at Davis and the Bodega Marine Laboratory. During the period covered by this report, a 24m x 30m plastic canopy, supported by a greenhouse frame, was erected over a plot of dune land at the Bodega Marine Laboratory which served to keep the saline irrigation water from being diluted by rain. Barley and wheat previously tested in salinized solution cultures at Davis were planted under the canopy. After one irrigation with fresh water to get the seeds to germinate and establish seedlings, irrigations with seawater and dilutions of it were initiated in succession for final regimes as follows: 1/3, 2/3 and undiluted seawater. The plants matured and set seed. Quantitative evaluation of the results is under way. It is, in any event, clear that yields are sufficiently large to be of potential economic significance in areas where conventional soil and water resources are scant or non-existent. Tomatoes, progeny of a cross between the commercial and a wild, commercially useless but salt tolerant species, were grown in plastic greenhouses at the Bodega Marine Laboratory under a regime of 50% seawater irrigation. Data analysis is proceeding and results will soon be available. The Coastal Commission permit for the canopy expired and the canopy, along with the greenhouse, was dismantled in August. Another field site on the west coast of Mexico will be used in an attempt to replicate the work completed at BML