Salt tolerance assessment of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) genotypes at germination stage by tolerance indices

This study was performed to assess several indices for identifying genotypes at germination stage with the best performance in salinity conditions. In order to evaluate the seed germination of barley genotypes in different levels of salt conditions, an experiment was conducted as factorial arrangement with a completely randomized design with 3 replications. The effect of salinity treatments was studied through an analysis of the germination, yielding results that show significant differences among genotypes. Stress tolerance index, stress tolerance, stress susceptibility index, germination reduction ratio, mean productivity and geometric mean productivity were used. The majority of used indices indicated that ESBYTM8910, 4 Shori and MBS8715 were the best barley genotypes showing the highest stress resistance for the greatest NaCl concentration. This result was similar to those obtained from the analysis of variance and statistical comparison of means of genotypes germination percentages. There were positive and strong correlations of germination percentage in normal and stress condition with STI in high levels of salinity. Thus, this correlation seems to be a useful indicator of tolerant genotypes at this stage.