Morpho-physiological response of barley to assess genotypic differences of salinity tolerance under hyper arid climate

Salt stress is major constraint affecting agricultural productivity, land degradation and has become a serious threat for global food security. The selection and evaluation of barley genotypes that can tolerate salt stress are the main components for rehabilitation of salt-degraded marginal soils in arid and semi-arid countries, including Arabian Peninsula. A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the response of six barley genotypes (62/3 A, 76/2 A, N2–35, N2–4, Badia, Furat1) at three salinity levels (0, 7 and 14 dS m−1) to evaluate the response of genotypes based on morpho-physiological characteristics and nutrients uptake. The grain yield stability (static environmental variance (S2) and dynamic Wricke’s ecovalence (W2), and harvest index (HI) was also estimated. The higher salinity treatment (14 dS m−1) resulted in devastating reduction in barley yield traits. Additionally, salt treatments (7 dS m−1, 14 dS m−1), genotypes and interaction between (genotypes ∗ salinity levels) exhibited significant (p