This is the VOA SpecialEnglish AGRICULTURE REPORT.
Studies show that there will be nine-thousand-million people inthe world by the year Two-Thousand-Fifty. The United Nations haswarned that many countries will have to increase food production tosatisfy their population demands.
Some agriculture experts say increasing grain production on theworld’s richest soils may not be enough. They note that productionof wheat also must be increased on less productive soils.
One concern is the growing amountof harmful metals in farmland soils. The metal aluminum, forexample, restricts growth of wheat plants when acid levels in thesoil are high. Aluminum particles are mainly found just below thetopsoil.
Aluminum restricts plant growth on more than thirty percent ofall farmland worldwide. In the United States, almostthirty-five-million hectares of farmland are affected.
Adding another substance, lime, is one way to reduce the acidityof soils that have too much aluminum. But lime is costly totransport long distances. Another method is to develop plants strongenough to grow in such soils.
J. Perry Gustafson is a genetic expert with the AgriculturalResearch Service of the United States Agriculture Department. He ishelping plant growers develop new kinds of wheat plants with genesthat will help the plants grow in high-aluminum soils.
Mister Gustafson works with the Plant Genetics Research office inColumbia, Missouri. Scientists there have been studying the geneticstructure of wheat. They have identified the area of a gene thatresists aluminum. They say the aluminum-resistant gene is betweentwo marker genes that are close to each other.
Wheat growers can now choose plants that have these markers. TheDepartment of Agriculture say this process may reduce by half thetime required to develop a new kind of wheat. Currently, ten tofifteen years are necessary.
The genetic marker was identified in a wheat plant native toBrazil. No other wheat grows as well in high-aluminum soils.
Mister Gustafson says that borrowing genes from another grain,rye, may be the best hope for wheat to survive in acidic,high-aluminum soils. He has found genetic markers in rye plants thatare closely linked to the aluminum-resistant genes. He hopes themarkers can be used to help move the desirable rye genes into wheat.
This VOA Special English AGRICULTURE REPORT was written by GeorgeGrow.