Investigating the genetic diversity of bread wheat germplasm under salinity stress

Introduction
Soil salinity, as one of the most important environmental stresses, is a serious threat to agricultural production. Currently, more than 20% of the agricultural lands, which includes 954 million hectares of the world's lands, is affected by soil salinity. Salinity is expanding daily and it is predicted that by 2050, more than 50% of the world's arable lands will be saline. The decrease in yield due to salinity stress in wheat is considerable and worrying, so that a 50% decrease in yield of durum wheat due to salinity of rainfed lands, and an 88% decrease in yield of bread wheat under irrigation with high salinity and and a 70% decrease in yield of bread wheat in sodic soils has been reported. The high levels of salt in soils and irrigation waters are worrying factors for agriculture, therefore it is necessary to develop the effective strategies to improve yield through salinity stress tolerance. The present study was carried out due to the importance of genetic accessions as sources of tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses including salinity, and the existence of considerable genetic diversity in wheat germplasm to salinity stress tolerance. The objective of this experiment is to investigate the diversity of genetic accessions of bread wheat collection of Iran's National Plant Gene Bank, to compare the accessions with the tolerant control varieties, and to identify the new genetic resources for salinity tolerance.
Materials and methods
To identify the genetic resources of salinity tolerance in wheat germplasm, 512 accessions from the bread wheat collection of the National Plant Gene Bank of Iran along with salinity tolerant varieties, Kavir, Roshan and Mahoti as controls, were investigated in two different augmented designs under normal and salinity stress conditions. The normal experiment was carried out at the research field of Yazd Research Center and the salt experiment was done at saline lands of Ardekan Research Station. The studied traits included spike length, spike density, 100-grain weight, number of tillers, plant height, number of spikelets per spike, number of florets per spikelet, number of grains per spike, days to heading, days to maturity, grain filling period and grain weight of five spikes,  which were recorded according to the international description. To perform data statistical analyses, descriptive statistical indices were first calculated and then the studied accessions were grouped using K-means cluster analysis. Discriminant function analysis based on principal components was used to investigate the differentiation between the groups resulting from cluster analysis. Statistical analyzes were performed by SPSS and R softwares.
 
 
Research findings
The results showed that grain weight of five spikes (with a minimum of 4.15 and a maximum of 12.26 g in normal conditions and a minimum of 2.19 and a maximum of 9.78 g in stress conditions) and the number of spikes (with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 8 in normal conditions and a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 7 in stress conditions) had the highest coefficients of variation, while days to heading (with a minimum-maximum of 130-163 days and 126-168 days in normal and salinity stress conditions, respectively) and days to maturity (with a minimum-maximum of 173-189 days and 168-196 days in normal and salinity stress conditions, respectively) had the lowest coefficient of variation under both normal and salinity stress conditions. A large number of superior accessions were identified for various traits compared to the control cultivars under both normal and salinity stress conditions. The results of stepwise regression indicated the importance of three characteristics, 100-grain weight, number of grains per spike and number of florets per spikelet, in describing the variation of grain weight of five spikes. The investigated accessions were divided into five groups using K-means cluster analysis and the control cultivars were separated into different groups so that Roshan and Mahooti along with 70 accessions were grouped in the first cluster and Kavir along with 53 accessions in the fifth cluster.
Conclusion
The results of this experiment showed the presence of significant and valuable genetic diversity in traits related to salt stress tolerance in the studied bread wheat germplasm. The effect of salinity stress on different traits of the studied accessions was different. Among the studied traits, 100-grain weight, number of grains per spike and number of florets per spike were more important, so they can be used in breeding programs. A large number of accessions were also superior to control cultivars for various traits. Cluster analysis grouped the control cultivars into distinct clusters, which indicates different aspects of salt stress tolerance in these cultivars. The superior accessions identified in this research can be used to improve salt stress tolerance in bread wheat breeding programs.