effect of salinity and seed size on lentil (lens culinaris medik) germination and seedling growth properties

both soil and water salinity is one of the main reasons in decreasing germination, seedling growth and establishment in many arid and semiarid parts of world especially in our country. for this reason in order to evaluate the effect of lentil seed size on germination and seedling growth properties that was under effect of salinity stress, a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement and 3 replications conducted using two lentils genotypes (robatt and gachsaran), two small and large seed sizes (34.8 and 59 mg in robatt and 41.5 and 69 mg in gachsaran per seed), respectively and five drought levels (0, 0.5, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.7 percent of nacl) in 2008s. results showed that robatt genotype had higher germination rate and salinity tolerance than gachsaran. in addition seed size had significant different (p<0.01) for both percent and rate of germination. in non saline condition large seeds had strong seedling and higher germination and lower germination rate. but salinity tolerances of large seeds were lower than smalls. with salinity increasing percent and rate of germination and seedling weight were decreased with sever slop. overall it seems that culture of robatt small seed is performance in salinity condition.