Salt Tidbits & Trivia

Western Australia has more than 2.5 million acres of severely-affected saline soil and has instituted a vigorous program to make better use of this land. While other countries, including the United States, don’t have the problem to the same degree, increasingly saline soils will be a growing problem in the future and we would all do well to closely follow the developments in Australia.

Common saltbush is a grayish-white shrub that grows to be about 2 to 3 feet tall. The common saltbush is often mistaken for "sagebrush" although it is actually related to the "tumbleweed", or Russian thistle. It gets its name from the salty deposits on its leaves. When the saltbush takes up water from salty, alkaline soils, it removes and deposits the excess salt in bladders on its leaves. This keeps the salt away from the plant cells and also attracts moisture in the air for the plant to absorb. When the leaves are eaten or fall off, the extra salt is removed from the plant.

Common saltbush is sometimes called "cattle spinach". It is very important as a browse plant for cattle and sheep because it is a great source of minerals, especially salt, which they need. As described in this week’s edition of Australian Food News, Dianne Mayberry, a PhD student from the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity has thrown her energies into making digestion of saltbush by sheep more efficient so that it can provide far greater commercial value.

This idea may be worthwhile considering in remediation of some roadside soils routinely impacted by saline runoff.

Posted by Mort Satin at 10:52 AM | Permalink

A number of years ago, I was involved with a micro-encapsulation research program related to increased wool grow in sheep. The idea was to micro-encapsulate methionine so that it could survive the conditions in the front end of the rumen and be incorporated into the digestion taking place in the abomasum (the fourth compartment of the stomach of a ruminant). When digested at that point, methionine was shown to contribute to a significant increase in wool production.

The latest research reports coming out from down under indicates that such a costly and complex system may not be necessary to increase wool production.

The May 14, 2007 issue of the AllAboutFeed Newsletter indicates that increased dietary salt can increase wool growth across a range of sheep diets. These results suggest that increasing salt in the feed ration may be a viable strategy to increase wool production efficiency.

In trials carried out over 2 months, 18 month old Merino wethers were individually penned and offered one of l6 different diets. The feeds were formulated with four levels of added sodium chloride (nil, 7%, 14%, and 21%) and four levels of organic matter digestibility (55%, 62%, 69%, and 76%). Treatment feeds were offered ad libidum for seven weeks and at maintenance during the final week. Researchers found that clean wool growth, corrected for digestible organic matter intake, increased by 16%, 18% and 27% as added sodium chloride was increased by 7%, 14% and 2l% respectively. On the other hand, liveweight gain was reduced from increasing dietary sodium chloride, mostly as a result of reduced feed intake at the higher salt levels.

While higher levels of dietary salt may be favourable for wool production efficiency, the decrease in the feed intake of sheep needs careful management for commercial livestock production.

Now, if the same mechanism worked for hair, we might have a highly palatable cure for baldness.

Posted by Mort Satin at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Want an intriguing introduction to "The Salt Queen"? The current issue of i-94 magazine features a profile of Italian-born, NY-based salt sculptress and artist Bettina Werner, entitled "A Saline Mind." Now here's someone who LOVES salt!

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 12:47 AM | Permalink