Breeding salt tolerant wheat varieties using physiological and agronomical criteria.

Many research projects were performed within the framework of this research program which their objective has been improvement of new cultivars of hexaploid wheat with good grain yield potential, salinity tolerant ,good bread-making quality, resistance to major diseases of temperate zone including stripe rust, leaf rust, and stem rust, and also good agronomic traits including short plant height, lodging tolerance, resistance to shattering along with fitted earliness to agronomic cropping schemes in saline temperate regions. More over to that, other studies have been considered for strengthening the bases of agronomic and breeding research works to overcome the facing challenges of the same cropping system. In this study 2500 accessions no. of Iranian wheat landraces of Cereals Research Department collection for screening to salinity stress, were evaluated under saline conditions in two Agricultural Research Stations (õEsfahan and Yazd). Many crosses have been performed among the domestic, landraces and exotic germplasm under the crossing projects during the first 5 years of this research program. The extracted pure lines of those crosses are gradually entering the yield trials at the present time and at the future will do as well. To extract pure breeding lines, the developed germplasm of crossing projects were handled, evaluated and screened out through conduction of segregating populations projects every year in salinity stress conditions..The evaluation of grain yield and important traits of those breeding lines originated from domestic or exotic crosses was followed through conduction of preliminary, regional preliminary (over 3-5 locations), regional advanced(over 3-5 locations) and adaptation trials(over 4 locations).Besides of nomination Bam & Neishabour (for saline areas of temperate zone) and Sistan (for saline areas of warm regions) cultivares in 2005-06, Line Ms-81-4 with good adaptability inr saline areas of moderate regions , good bread-making quality and salinity tolerant was nominated as Arg in 2009 and added to national list of salinity tolerant wheat trade cultivars. Many promising breeding lines were nominated for on-farm and demonstration trials under farmer fields which out of them and based on all concerning traits,. More over breeding lines MS-84-13, MS-85-12, MS-85-15 & MS-85-17 (for saline areas of temperate zone),SS-85-6, SS-85-10,SS-85-11, SS-85-14 and SS-85-20 (for saline areas of warm regions) due to their good yield potential , salinity tolerant, and adaptive traits have been multiplied under farmer fields and might be continued for cultivation as such. In overall through 5 years running of this research program four salinity tolerant wheat cultivars released, more than 25 technical reports published, several scientific papers published in scientific journals or presented at the scientific symposia. The seed multiplication of improved cultivars was also one of the main practices under this research program followed every year.