How long after being flooded by sea water (like tsunamis…) can land be cultivated again ?
That might depend on what you want to grow. Different plants have different salt tolerances.
For example, pickleweed (Salicornia spp. - sometimes grown for food in the middle east), is highly salt-tolerant and grows where it is regularly flooded by ocean water. You could grow it immediately after seawater floods.
The problem is, that unless the area is regularly flooded, it will eventually stop growing there. But that’s OK if you want to replace it with other plants.
Not sure how long you would have to wait to be able to plant things like corn, wheat, bananas, etc.
The figure I’ve seen kicked around most often is three years
Of course that’ll depend on soil type, drainage, how much rain there is, whether the groundwater got contaminated etc. etc.
Would growing pickleweed remove salt from the soil, so that other plants could be grown quicker?
Pickleweed accumulates salt within itself, but secregates it mostly within its tips, which after a certain time, drop off. So, unless the plants were continually harvested, you’d have the tips of the plants falling back to the soil, rotting, and then releasing salt back to the soil. Atriplex has been investigated for use in removing salt from soils, as they naturally grow in saline areas (they also excrete salt onto their leaf surfaces).
Well, from this quote, it seems that it is not necessary to have salt water for halophytes like Salicornia
*Experimental evidence has been produced that shows that many halophytes can grow in freshwater habitats. In fact, they often grow faster and reproduce more effectively in freshwater habitats than in salt. Professor Barbour at UC Davis has therefore concluded that there is no such “thing” as a obligate halophyte. He also suggests that competition not the physical environment is what prevents halophytes from expanding their ranges on the freshwater end of the salinity gradient.
*
This is also backed up by Nipa palms, they tend to grow in brackish coastal areas, but actually grow better in freshwater habitats.
I asked the exact question about a month ago. Duckster provided a helpful link to a New Scientist article that’s very informative. Looks like the biggest problem is the salt in the wells but the estimates for the land are anywhere from one to 10 years…
I’m pretty sure Barbour’s right. The vascular plants, and animals, are better termed salt-tolerant than salt-dependent. I’m not as sure about the halophilic bacteria, they seem to be extreme, and I’m not sure how their physiology works.
What exactly is a nipa palm, anyway?
Thanks Squink, that answers my question.
I just wanted to note that I wondered about this when I lived in Salt Lake City. The entire valley, after all, used to be on the bottom of a salty lake (you can still see the old “beaches” up on the mountain sides – they’re called The Benches). People settled there and lived by farming. How did they do it?
They brought down “sweet soil” from higher up on the mountains to help. I note that the entire SL Valley is now pretty well covered with non-salt-loving vegetation, and the real limiting factor is rainfall (everyone with a nice-looking lawn in SLC seems to have a sprinkler system that waters daily).
We have extensive flats of Pickleweed along the banks of the Elkhorn Slough here near Monterey. Quite pretty, they look like low islands, but i’ve seent hem growing up in land that things like grasses and eucalypts grow.
Nipa palms, are Nypa fructicans, which are also called “Mangrove palms”. They’re a trunkless palm, which are used extensively in South East Asia for thatching houses. In fact, the traditional house, the bahay kubo n the Philippines is also called a “Nipa hut”.
The species is very old, extending back 60 - 70 million years and maybe earlier. They’ve found its pollen in places as far away as the British Isles. I’d read that they were originally placed with the Pandanus, because their fruiting structures are similar in appearance to that of the pandanus (like a big soccer ball).
"Nypa is not a mangrove in the strict sense, as it does not exploit truly littoral environments nor can it tolerate inundation with undiluted sea-water for extended periods.
Casual observation of most Nypa populations will reveal the limited adaptiveness of the palm. It occurs most commonly in areas where brackish water occurs, extending far upstream into permanent fresh-water areas where tidal-influenced water-level fluctuations are able to carry and deposit the seeds. Secondarily, it can occur on low flats and depressions near or far from the main water bodies, at the base of eroding slopes and cliffs, or on sandy ridges or embankments. It can tolerate infrequent inundation, so long as the substrate in which it grows does not dehydrate for too long a period. The palm grows as an undershrub, infrequently as a tree, or can dominate in mixed forest. The species’ ‘ecological climax’ appears to be in pure stands on islets in the main channels or low flats on the inside of river meanders where fine, rich silt deposits occur. These deposits are replenished frequently by floods or wet season run-off from nearby rivers.
Apart from temperature, the most critical environmental condition for Nypa is the percentage dilution of the sea-water by seaward flowing fresh-water. Nypa does not require saline conditions at all as the luxuriant stands in pure fresh-water indicate; the palm is tolerant of an average low salinity, the salt-water tides being crucial for seed dispersal and deposition of silt. "
Yeah, Elkhorn Slough is a great place! I go kayaking there about once a year or so. I used to work in pickleweed marshes in southern California for my graduate degree.
You wouldn’t happen to be at Moss Landing or anything, would you?
I live down in Marina, actually.