Germination of Iranian and European barley cultivars under salinity stress and ‎its relationship with seed storage proteins

Germination is one of the most important stages of crop plant growth and proper germination in a wide range of environmental conditions is necessary for plant establishment. In this research, 20 varieties of Iranian barley and 24 varieties of European barley were used in three salinity levels (100, 200 and 300 mM sodium chloride) and a control level (distilled water) in order to investigate the tolerance of salinity stress in the germination stage, as a factorial test based on a completely randomized design with three replications in the mushroom cultivation chamber with controllable temperature and light and sterile conditions in the Nosoud agricultural service center by a protein marker in the biotechnology laboratory of the agriculture and natural resources of Razi university. The results of analysis of variance of traits related to germination showed that the effect of salinity, cultivar and salinity × cultivar were significant for all traits. By increasing the salinity level from 0 to 300 mM, all traits and indices decreased except the average germination time. The germination percentage had a positive and significant correlation with the total seedling length, shoot length, seed germination index, average germination rate and germination rate index. Stepwise regression analysis of different traits with protein markers showed that there were 13 bands associated with different traits. The most significant correlation with traits was related to the 60 kDa marker which was related four indices of seed germ, average germination speed, shoot length and cleoptile length. After the validation studies and confirmation of the results, the identified markers can be used in marker-assisted selection for related traits.