Breeding for salt tolerance in cereal and legumes: Status and prospects

Introduction Soil salinity is an important limiting factor for crop yield improvement, which affects 5-10% of arable lands approximately 75-100 million ha worldwide, depending on estimates (Szabolcs, 1994; Munns, 2002). Most crops are sensitive to salt stress at all stages of plant development, from seed germination through vegetative and reproductive growth. Salt originates from marine geological sediments or from accumulation over time because of excessive irrigation. For the last reason, salinity affected areas are increasing (Ghassemi et al., 1995), and proper irrigation management could curb this increase. However, this often contradicts with the immediate economic choices of concerned farmers, thus crop improvement for salt tolerance appears to be the only alternative.