Abstract

Rising salinity is a negative environmental stress with a big influence on agriculture across the world. As the population of the world is increasing day by day. Salt tolerance mechanisms are of increasing interest for improving crops.  Among all the cereal crops, barley is considered to be the most saline tolerant. However, the salinity tolerance varies among different cultivars. Under various salinity levels, a hydroponic experiment was performed at the Institute of Soil and Environmental Science, University of Agriculture Faisalabad to assess the performance of barley cultivars. The experiment was carried out with twelve barley genotypes at two levels of salinity (100mM and 200mM NaCl) and a control (Haider-93, B-05011, B-15006, Joo-83, B-15003, B-15005, B-9008, B-14003, B-15002, B-9006, B-14011, B-14007). For a period of six weeks, plant growth (height, root and shoot fresh and dry weight) and physiological traits (membrane stability index, relative water content) of salt-stressed plants including chlorophyll content and ionic concentration Na+ and K+ in roots and shoots were studied. A CRD or Completely Randomized Design with factorial arrangement and three replications were used. According to results, the increase in salinity caused a significant reduction in the growth and physiological parameters of the plant. It also reduced the chlorophyll content as well as K+ concentration. However, the concentration of Na+ increased with growing salinity. Among the different genotypes, the B-05011, B-14003, and B-9006 were found most salt-tolerant, while B-15006, B-15003, and B-15005 were recorded most salt-sensitive.  We can use the tolerant genotypes identified from this study for further cultivation in saline soils and breeding programs.