干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

A large number of halophytes are already exploited commercially (see list published as annex in Hamdy et al ed. 1999). There are many other species from the list recently published by Menzel and Lieth (1999) in Lieth et a] (ed.) (1999) which are potentially of commercial value as cash crop or for other purposes.

From the number of species presented in that paper, we have chosen to discuss here first attempts to develop Avicennia species or varieties into vegetable crops.

The seeds of several Avicennia species have been shown to be edible. Foliage and seeds are used as animal fodder in several countries.

Several scientists within the EU CA "Sustainable Utilisation of Halophytes" have started to develop production systems, chemical analyses and irrigation techniques to grow Avicennia on large scale in desert areas in North Africa and Arabia.

Halophytes possess genes for salt tolerance. These may help to improve the salt tolerance of common crops. New molecular biochemical techniques were initiated to identify their position. As one of the model plants we took Aster tripolium.

Production plans, research design and first data from chemical and genetic analyses of this species will be discussed in this paper.