[1] The government of the Netherlands reports a breakthrough in food security as specific varieties of potatoes, carrots, red onions, white cabbage and broccoli appear to thrive if they are irrigated with salt water.
x) For potato only one comparable value is known in literature, namely for the very sensitive variety white rose having a threshold of 1.7 dS/m [8] +) For barley, in contrast, the U.S. Salinity Laboratory mentions a threshold value of ECe = 8 dS/m, which makes it a tolerant crop [9] The highest tolerance is found for the onion variety "Red" which classifies as slightly sensitive.
In the Texel report, also the Van Genuchten-Gupta model (giving an S-curve) was used to find the soil salinity at the 90% yield point.
The Mediterranean Agronomic Institute, Valenzano, Bari, Italy South coast grew 5 cultivars of lentil irrigated with sea water of different salinity levels.
[10] Some of the results are shown in the following table: Halophytes, or salt-loving plants, can be irrigated with pure seawater with the aim to grow fodder crops.
Liu Shiping's team at Yangzhou University created rice varieties that can be grown in salt water, and achieve yields of 6.5 to 9.3 tons per hectare.
They concluded that certain amounts of seawater can be practically used in hydroponics, allowing freshwater savings and increasing concentrations of certain mineral nutrients.