Halophytes as an alternative source for fodder

Ashwani Kumar1, Sourabh Kumar2, Charu Lata1, Pooja3 and Anita Mann1
1

ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal 132001, India

2

ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal 132001, India

ICAR- Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Regional Center, Karnal 132001, India

Livestock production is the backbone of Indian agriculture contributing around 7 per cent to
national growth domestic product. In India, livestock population is expected to grow at the rate of
0.55 per cent in the coming years, and the livestock population is likely to be around 781 million by
2050. Though the country is among the leading producers of milk and meat, productivity of our
animals is 20-60% lower than the global average due to improper nutrition, inadequate health-care
and management (Anonymous, 2013). Half of the total losses in livestock productivity are contributed
by inadequacy in supply of feed and fodder. Forage-based economical feeding strategies are required
to reduce cost of quality livestock products; as feed alone constitutes 60-70% of milk-production cost.
The major concern in developing a sustainable dairy sector is to ensure availability of green fodder
throughout year and to feed the animals (Naik et al., 2012). But on the other hand, country faces a net
deficit of 35.6% of green fodder, 26% of dry-crop residues and 41% of concentrate feed ingredients
(Anonymous, 2013). The ever increasing cultivation of cereals and cash crops resulted in shrinking
the land for fodder cultivation which is the major constraints in production of green fodder. So in
order to feed the live stock there is a need to use degraded lands particularly saline soils by cultivating
salt tolerant crops and grasses particularly grass or non-grass halophytes species that can grow well
under saline conditions and have been opportunistically used as fodder for grazing livestock or as
components of mixed rations to replace roughage (Semple et al., 2003). The interest in search for
alternative/additional feed ingredients is of paramount importance in developing countries, mainly,
because of the acute shortage of traditional feed materials. Introduction of saline agriculture
production systems in salt affected regions has proved to be an effective way to save fresh water for
human and animal consumption while the saline water could be used for animal feed production
(Anonymous, 2009; El Shaer, 2010).

One of the alternatives of the above problem is to cultivate the barren salt affected lands and
reclamation of these lands. Globally more than 900 million hectares of land, approx. 20% of the total
agricultural land (FAO, 2007), are affected by salt, accounting for more than 6% of the worlds total
land area. In India, salt affected soils occupy an area of about 6.73 million ha of which saline and
sodic soils constitute roughly 40% and 60 %, respectively (Singh et al., 2010). Salt-affected soils
(SAS) are widespread in irrigated arid and semi-arid regions of the world where irrigation is essential
to increase agricultural production to satisfy food requirements. Soil salinity is an increasing problem
for agriculture, affecting the most productive crop areas of the world, those cultivated under irrigation
in arid and semiarid regions; they represent less than 15% of global arable land, but produce more
than 40% of world food (Munns and Tester, 2008). One of the pressures of the burgeoning world
population is the need to increase agricultural production. Most of the saline lands are not suitable for
growth of traditional crops because of extreme salinity and other adverse factors. The shortage of
water plus high salinity is major factors hindering plant growth in these salty lands. Soil and water
salinity cause several physiological disorders in plants, connected with ionic imbalances in the
rhizospheric environment; these can range from a cytotoxic and denaturating effect of the ions
themselves to osmotic stress and alteration of the ion uptake balance (Flowers and Lauchli, 1983).
From an agricultural point of view, the final effect of salinity is the reduction of quality and yield of
crops. If plant salt tolerance cannot be improved, then vast amounts of soils may be left uncultivated.
This will severely threaten the national food security and biomass energy production.
A promising but not yet deeply investigated field is represented by the use of halophytic
plants in conditions of salt stress: the salt uptake and accumulation performed by the halophytes can
reduce the severity of the stress at a rhizospheric level. These plants have special physiological
adaptations that enable them to grow in high salt affected soils upto seawater salinity levels (~50 ECe)
and can produce relatively high consumable biomass in saline areas where non-halophytic species
either do not grow or have low biomass yields. Salt-tolerant forages, especially grasses that could
grow well under saline irrigation, would be potentially valuable alternative forage resources and could
play a major role in sustaining livestock production (Masters et al., 2007). The vegetative yields of
halophytes and other salt-tolerant plants species could have great potentialities particularly as sources

of livestock fodders (Anon, 2009). There are many halophytes and salt-tolerant shrubs, grasses and
legumes which could be established in saline lands for feeding livestock (e.g. Kochia sp., Juncus sp.,
Leptochloa fusca, Acacia sp., Suaeda fruticosa, Nitraria retusa, Salsola sp., Atriplex sp., Paspalum
distichum and Scirpus litoralis). The fodder quality of these plants depends on a combination of
climatic, soil, and plant factors. Halophytes have the advantage of tolerating high salt levels in the
saline lands and have economic potentialities in the arid and semi-arid areas (Zahran, 1993; El Shaer,
1999).Therefore, halophytes may be considered as a supplementary feed and fodder resource under
high salt affected arid and semi-arid regions.

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