Evaluation and grouping of lentil genotypes to salinity stress in the greenhouse

Salinity is one of the main reasons of reduction in plant growth and production. One of the most low-cost ways to use saline soil and water is cultivating resistant plants to salinity. We designed an experiment to evaluate salinity resistance of 107 genotypes of Lens culinaris under control conditions. The experiment was designed in completely randomized blocks with three replications in 12dS.m-1 NaCl. The results indicated that four weeks after salt stress, thirty nine genotypes showed survival rate of 76-100% and nine genotypes had a 100% survival. Based on factor analysis, four factors explained 72% of changes in data, which first and second factors explained the most changes in data variants included survival percent, contents of chlorophyll a, contents of chlorophyll b, carotenoids, chlorophyll a/chlorophyll b, total content of phenol, content of proline, DPPH, Na/K, and dry matter. Then, we used these two factors to determine distribution and distinguish best genotypes in results which were MLC250, MLC263, MLC281, MLC285, MLC286, MLC291, MLC292, MLC294, MLC296, MLC299, MLC300, MLC301, MLC307, MLC311, MLC314, MLC316, MLC323, MLC327, MLC357, MLC362, MLC363, MLC364 and MLC371. According to the cluster analysis, genotypes were classified into 5 groups. The third and fifth group showed the best results in survival percent and other traits; therefore, we suggest these genotypes use for salt tolerance breeding programs in lentil.