Combating soil salinity with native grasses: From Global Challenge to Adaptive Mechanisms and Phytoremediation Solutions

Abiotic stresses like salinity, drought, and extreme temperatures, are the common factors that inhibit the growth of plants. They act against the optimum environmental conditions, posing a threat to global food security with the loss of crop yields in large proportions. One of these is soil and water salinity which is one of the most dominant ecological constraints. This problem is experienced in large portions of the cultivated and irrigated farmland across the globe and also leads to significant agricultural and economic loss. Salinity causes osmotic and ionic stress in plants that results into physiological, anatomical, and morphological adaptation. Whilst sensitive species (glycophytes) perish, halophytes and some resilient grasses develop strategies to endure and flourish including ion homeostasis, compartmentalization, and production of compatible solutes. In this review, a special emphasis in given on the importance of native and salt-tolerant grass species such as Leptochloa fusca, Panicum antidotale, Cymbopogon jwarancusa, Lasiurus scindicus, Aeluropus lagopoides, and Ochthochloa compressa showing a high level of resilience due to the multiple tolerance mechanisms. These grasses do not only constitute important parts of arid and semi-arid ecosystems, which serve fodder and habitat purposes, but also have tremendous prospects of phytoremediation and reclamation of saline soils. The knowledge of their adaptive mechanisms can be used to find promising areas of sustainable agricultural methods and restoration of the degraded lands with the increasing salinization.