Evaluation of salinity tolerance of barley cultivars in vitro and field conditions

In order to evaluate the effect of salinity on some traits in different cultivars of barley at different growth stages, this experiment was conducted in vitro and field culture environment in Sadough research farm, dependent to Salinity Research National Center in cropping year 2012-2013. The germination of Afzal, Nosrat, Reihan, 4shoori and Rodasht cultivars in response to different levels of salinity 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 dS.m-1 and distilled water as control was studied in vitro culture as factorial based on completely randomized design with three replications. The results showed that the greatest germination reduction was at salinity level of 20 dS.m-1. Also, among the tested cultivars, cultivars of Afzaland and 4Shoori with 58.6 percentage and 58.53 percentage presented the percent of germination comparing to the other cultivars, respectively. Experiment in the culture of field was conducted as split plot based on randomized complete blocks design with four replications. Different salinity were applied at main plots and five under-investigating cultivars in subplots at three levels including the amounts of 4, 8 and 14 dS.m-1. Effect of salinity treatment on all understudying traits (except spike length) was significant at one percentage probability level and five percentage probability level on spike length. Although most of the traits decreased due to salinity tension, but applying salinity increased sodium and potassium of grain. Grain yield decreased and the cultivars showed significant difference, by increasing salinity tension. The salinity interaction in cultivar showed the lowest yield in 14 dS.m-1 salinity Nosrat, Reihan, 4shoori and Rodasht cultivars and Afzal cultivar was superior in the salinity than other cultivars.