Prof. Hans-Werner Koyro from Geissen University, Germany, has said that global climate changes are leading to disasters such as flooding, drought and salinization.

He was speaking at a workshop titled `Sustainable Development and Environment Protection' organized by Institute of Sustainable Halophyte Utilization, University of Karachi, an official of the institution said here on Sunday.

Prof. Koyro further stated that these environmental changes are threatening to cause major food crises for the growing world population. In many countries such as Germany and Brazil there is increasing tendency to use food crops like maize and sugar cane to produce biofuel.

However, the food versus fuel dilemma has to be addressed in order to ensure food security for growing world population, Prof. Koyro said adding that in order to meet these changes, there is a need to find biological solutions.

The two-day workshop was organized in collaboration with Pakistan Academy of Science and University of Karachi.

Students and young faculty members from various departments such as Botany, Geography, CEMB, and ISHU as well as from Lasbela University of Water, Agriculture and Marine Sciences attended the hands on workshop and seminar sessions during this event.

The aim of the workshop was to create awareness about global environment changes which are threatening our health and
food security.

International experts in the field of Ecophysiology and Agricultural sciences conducted the presentation and training sessions.

Faculty members of ISHU conducted practical training under the guidance of Prof. Hans-Werner Koyro in various groups to work on monitoring ionic, osmotic, oxidative and photosynthetic mechanisms on different types of stress tolerant plants as tools to evaluate responses to environmental stresses.

Halophytic plants growing at the Institute were used to conduct analysis with state of the art instruments and techniques. In addition, pitfalls in data interpretation for high stress tolerant plants which could sometimes be quite complex was also reviewed.

The discussion sessions and work plans were coordinated by prof. Dr. Benno , Prof. M. Ajmal Khan and Prof. Bilquees Gul.

Dr. Koyro, elaborated on the various types of salt tolerant plants as well as their biochemical, anatomical and physiological sub-types and the remarkable ways that these plants have evolved to deal with naturally harsh conditions such as high temperature, light, salinity, drought and flooding.

There are lessons to be learnt from this biological diversity of form and function that can reshape our conventional crops and cropping systems to obtain high yields and economic benefits such as medicine, biofuel and food and fodder.

Prof. Dr. Xiaojing Liu gave a lecture on `Growing Halophytes from Agronomic Purposes' and stressed the importance of appropriate agronomic practices that can ameliorate salt stress under saline, waterlogged soils to grow even high value conventional crops such as corn, sorghum and cotton.

He presented detailed case study of Suaeda Salsa, an edible halophyte in China and showed experimental data from early germination stage to successful field trials under saline conditions. During freezing conditions of winter they irrigated soils with sea water which when melted resulted in leaching of salts. In addition, they carried out different fertilizer trials and irrigation practices like mulching with hay straw and synthetic plastic material to improve soil moisture and mineral content. Eventually they succeeded in developing a cropping system using a local salt tolerant plant with high yield.

It was demonstrated that using appropriate agricultural practices coupled with modern research techniques for evaluating salt tolerant plants new crops can be developed for high yields. Similar experiments were also done using other crop plants where they were previously unable to carry out successful agriculture.