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The cradle of civilisation is under threat - not just from violence and conflict, but from salty water and soil.

Research Professor Ed Barrett-Lennard, from UWA 's Centre of Excellence for Ecohydrology, is one of five scientific mentors from Australia who are helping Iraq to tackle the salinity problems that are affecting three-quarters of the country's irrigated farmland. Around 25,000 hectares of agricultural land is being abandoned each year, adding food security to war-torn Iraq's list of problems.

The Iraq Salinity Project brings together agricultural researchers and policy makers from Australia, Iraq and international research centres under the expertise of project leader ICARDA, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, to improve growing conditions on the Mesopotamian plain.

But how do our scientists help Iraqi farmers without putting their lives at risk? "The answer is remotely," Professor Barrett-Lennard said. "We meet with our Iraqi partners in a neutral state. It used to be Syria, but we can't go there anymore, so now we meet in Jordan."

He, three CSIRO scientists and an industry consultant have been passing on their experiences through a project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) for about two years. They have shared their knowledge in saltland agronomy, especially in the use of salt-tolerant forage crops for improved livestock production, mapping salinity using instruments on the ground and by remote sensing, management of river systems with saline flows and on-farm practices for the management and reclamation of saline soils.

And they have had some great results, after working on similar salinity problems in Australia since the 1980s.

"I'm very impressed with the forage growth," Professor Barrett-Lennard said. "I'm used to pretty shabby results in WA with salt-tolerant forages, but in one of our trials in Iraq we are getting 10 to 15 tonnes of biomass per hectare, and that's brilliant. We can't get within a bull's roar of those figures here. It shows how constrained we are by lack of water."

He said the water in the Euphrates River had a salinity of about 10 per cent seawater, 200 kilometres from the coast. But local producers, with mentoring from the Australian scientists and others in the group, are becoming innovative.

One enterprising farmer developed a site for vegetable production, establishing a greenhouse for aubergines (eggplant). He dug out the saline soil, replaced it with sand and organic matter and waters his crop alternately with fresh and saline irrigation water. His yields are high and he is selling his produce at the Basra market.

The project is operating at three levels: regionally, to identify the distribution of salt-affected soils and levels of salinity in river systems; locally, to assess irrigation and drainage infrastructure; and on farms, to find out the best ways to control salt levels in soil.

In addition, salt-tolerant wheat varieties are growing well in soils that have been deep-ripped and leached to reduce saltiness of the soil. Deep drains are being trialled as a means of dropping salty groundwater. And the salt tolerance of local and introduced grains are being tested.

The group has funding until March next year.

"The Australian Ambassador visited our research sites in southern and central Iraq last month and he was very impressed," Professor Barrett-Lennard said. "We hope this might lead to some continued funding."

Published in UWA News , 25 June 2012