China has made great progress in improving its alkaline soil over the past decade. Recent statistics show that more than 100,000 hectares of alkaline land at the Yellow River Delta, one of the country's three major river deltas, have already become fertile.

This is attributed to the growing various alkaline-tolerant plants on alkaline soil.

During the past 10 years, scientists at the Dongying Alkaline-Tolerant Botanical Garden in Dongying, a city in Shandong Provinceat the mouth of the Yellow River, selected more than 80 varieties of plants that can resist salt and alkali, including Chinese flowering crabapple, Chinese toon, lucerne, and narrow-leaved oleaster.

Farmers in Zhanhua County in Shandong earned more than 50 million yuan by planting narrow-leaved oleasters on alkaline land last year.

China has about 40 million hectares of alkaline land, and experts say that growing alkaline-tolerant plants may serve as an efficient measure to improve the soil.