ARABLE farmers may soon be able to reclaim huge tracts of barren farmland
tainted by poisonous forms of aluminium. Government researchers in the US have
pinpointed the gene responsible for giving a unique strain of barley its ability
to tolerate high levels of toxic aluminium without loss of yield. They hope that
breeders may be able to cross or transfer the trait into different barley
strains or other crops.
Aluminium toxicity doesn’t harm people directly, but the problem does blight
half the world’s arable land, including a belt of 35 million hectares in the US,
says David Garvin of the…
