Researchers at the University of Houston were selected to be part of a $7.9 million project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture to investigate how to make crops more resilient to extreme conditions such as heatwaves, floods and droughts.
ABC13 Meteorologist Elyse Smith visited their rooftop greenhouse on what was a data collection day within phase one of the project.
Under the supervision of Dr. Abdul Khan and Dr. Shuhab Khan, one of the main problems these researchers are trying to solve is related to soil salinization. That’s when there’s too much salt in otherwise healthy soil.
“Whenever you have a drought, you have stress on vegetation. Whenever there is salinity, flooding brings salinity. After flooding, we have more saline soil,” Dr. Shuhab Khan explained. Soil salinization can occur naturally, like during flash floods.
However, human activities such as deforestation, irrigation, and over-farming can also lead to salt buildup in the soil.
One of the early theories the team tested was using silicone in the soil to counteract the salt content.