Effect of salt stress on yield quality and quantity of promising lines of barley

This study was conducted to evaluate the yield and yield components of promising lines of barley under saline irrigation water (ECw=10 dS/m) at experimental farm of Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center of Yazd, located in Ardakan during the 2012-2013 growing season. 18 promising lines and two control lines (EMBS-89-18 and Line-4-salt) were studied in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Seedling emergence percent, plant height, number of infertile and fertile tillers, spike length, number of seed per spike, spike yield, seed weight, hectoliter weight, protein, phosphorus and ash content of grain were measured. Salinity has no significant effect on field emergence percentage. There were significant differences in most studied traits among the lines. However, lines were divided into four groups, based on the yield and yield components. A group that consisted 6 lines along with control line EMBS-89-18, produced more yield than other lines. Thus, these lines could be considered for more investigations for cultivation in saline areas. Based on the agronomic characteristics, it can be said that barley genotypes with restricted and faster tillering, higher reproductive components per spike, seed weight and biomass were more tolerant to salinity which could produce acceptable grain yield under these conditions. The stepwise regression analysis showed that 1000-seed weight justified 52% of the variation in grain yield per plant, therefore, it could be concluded that 1000- seed weight was the most important yield component under saline condition.