Phenotypic and Physiological Evaluation of Wheat Genotypes under Non-Saline and Saline Soil Conditions

This study was conducted to assess the effect of soil salinity on leaf area (LA), the number of days to flowering (DF), plant height (PH), and grain yield. Overall, 60 wheat genotypes were used, including 49 CIMMYT elite lines and 11 commercially grown Egyptian wheat cultivars. During two growing seasons (2017 and 2018), the genotypes were grown in non-saline (S0) and saline (S1) soils. A randomized complete block design with three replicates was used in a split-plot arrangement. Salinity levels were randomly assigned to the main plots, while genotypes were randomly assigned to the subplots. The obtained results showed that the saline soil adversely affected the evaluated genotypes. Furthermore, a highly significant effect of genotypes × salinity was observed on grain yield and its attributed traits. Based on salinity indices results, some of the imported wheat genotypes outperformed the Egyptian cultivars in grain yield under salinity stress conditions. The results further indicated that Sakha-93, C-31, and C-40 were the most salt-tolerant genotypes. The best performing line among the CIMMYT lines was C-31, which recorded the highest grain yield under none-saline and saline soil in the two seasons of study.