As our planet heats up, farmers worldwide are struggling to maintain yields in the face of intensifying heat, drought, and soil salinity. Over 830 million hectares of farmland are now salty, contributing to a 30%-50% loss in agricultural productivity, according to Salicrop.
That innovative company is tackling these challenges with cutting-edge seed enhancement technology.
Rather than the time-consuming process of breeding new crop varieties, Salicrop has developed treatments that activate plants' innate stress-response mechanisms, enabling crops to better handle periods of intense heat, prolonged dry spells, and salty soil.
The best part? Farmers can use these treatments with the same commercial seed varieties they know and trust.
"We soak the seeds with a proprietary combination of up to 10 materials for six to 12 hours," Salicrop CEO Carmit Oron told AgFunder News. "We're not using biologicals, and for regulatory purposes, it's similar to priming [pre-soaking seeds and then drying them to improve germination rates or confer other benefits].
"After we dry the seeds they are the same weight; we're not coating them and there's no residues on the seed, so you can call it seed enhancement rather than seed treatment. We're making the plants healthier."
Through extensive field trials conducted by co-founder Dr. Sharon Devir, SaliCrop has demonstrated yield increases of up to 15% for open-field tomatoes and 10%-17% for other commercial crops in poor quality, highly saline soil.
Farmers could maintain or even increase harvests in the face of worsening environmental conditions, putting more food on all of our plates.
While big seed companies are also tackling these environmental stressors, Salicrop's treatments can get to market much faster and work with organic farming since they don't coat the seeds. As our population grows and extreme weather threatens the global food supply, these seed enhancements offer hope.
Salicrop is already selling its treatments for tomatoes in Israel and expanding to other countries. With the right partnerships, it's poised to bring its crop-defending technology to farmers worldwide in the coming years.
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